blow about the beginning of the spring are called Orâ—ithiae namely from the comming or flocking in of the Birds which about that time do by the help of those Winds arrive at certain usual places And Fishes also which swim in Shoals many hundred thousands together do conspire to meet in such particular parts and at such set times to spawn and cherish their fry And likewise in the Spring so soon as ever the Cankerwormes do appear whose seeds are for the most part carried about by the Winds like invisible Atomes and are not begotten as people commonly believe either of their own accord or out of putrefaction the trees do presently shoot forth their buds which are to become the sustenance of those creatures and they themselves also are pursued by small Birds and conducted into their Nests to be devoured by their young So that whensoever we see unusual kinds of these Canker-wormes we do likewise meet with several sorts of forraign litle birds which are seldom seen at other times as if these Birds did Son sued for the Inheritance did cast him in Law though his Mother did affirm that the eldest Son was born in the thirteenth moneth because there seemet to be no certain time allotted for bringing forth There was a Woman not long since amongst us which kept a Child within her above sixteen moneths and perceived him to bestir himself in her Womb above ten monethes as many did evidence and yeâ— at last she brought him forth alive But I confess those are rare accidents And therefore Spigelius doth reprechend Ulpian the Lawyer without cause in that he admits none to be legitimate Heires thaâ— are borne after the tenth moneth For Lawes and rules of Art are for the most proportioned oâ— fitted to the actions of life which are rightly ordered Besides it must not be denied that there are many crafty fraudulent Women which for luâ—â— cre sake or for fear of punishment or infamy wiâ—â— feign and swear that they are with Child And likewise it is well known that others are easily deceived and being inexperienced in the matter do conceive themselves to be with Child when it is no such thing And to this purpose are those words of Aristotle The conception of those Infants which are borne after the eleventh moneth seemeth to have not been exactly known to the Women who are with Child for the women do not know when they first conceived For their Wombs being possessed with flatulencies and they afterwards conceiving a Child upon Coition conceive that flatulency to have been the first beginning of their conception because they then had some usual indications as do accompany such as do really conceive And we have also aâ— other times known that after three or four moneths space the former conception dying in the Womb and putrifying and the corrupt matter like to putrid after-purgings flowing forth a Superfoetation hath happened and yet the same Women have constantly affirmed that they have been delivered of a Child after the fourteenth moneth It falleth out some times saith Aristotle that after one Abortment tenne or twelve succeeding Infants which have been conceived by a superfoetation have fallen from the Mother But if the Mothers have been delivered in some short time after they have brought forth that Child which was begotten by a superfoetation and so they bring them forth like those children which are born Twinnes As the Fable runs of Iphicles and Hercules And this hath been already found to be so For a certain Adultress brought forth two Children one like her own Husband and the other like the Adulterer And likewise a certain Woman a long while since having Twinnes within her did conceive a third Child also so that when the time of her delivery was fully come she brought forth the Twinnes in their just time and they were perfect but the third was but of five moneths time and so he died instantly A certain Servant-Maid being gotten with Child by her Master to hide her knavery came to London in September where she Lay in by stealth and being recovered again returned home but in December following a new birth for she had a Superfoetation did proclaime the crime which she had cunningly concealed before It happened to another Woman as Aristotle proceedeth that when she had brought forth one Child in the seventh moneth she was after two moneths end delivered of two more whereof the first Child died but the Twins survived Likewise some Women that have suffered abortment have conceived two Children at the same time whereof the one hath been aborted before the time and the other hath continued the full time and been brought forth perfect For it is an easie matter that the first or last Conception which is conceived by a Superfoetation being ejected after the third or fourth month the following moneths may be reckoned more or less then they ought to be especially by credulous or unskilful Women I have sometimes known the Conception to perish in the Womb and being turned into Putrid Matter to have glided and issued forth like the flores albi and this both in Women and other Animals There was not long since a Woman in London which after such a kinde of Abortment did conceive again and was delivered at the just time But a litle after as she went about her worke being not in any great paine or distemper she did eject by peices the black litle Bones which related to her former Abortment Some of these Bones were brought to me which I could discover to be the fragments of the Spine the Bone of the Thigh and of other Bones I know a young Woman who was the Daughter of a Physitian who was of my neer acquaintance which being Big felt all the Symptomes incident to Women in that condition and continuing healthy and sprightly after the fourteenth week she perceived the motions of a Foetus in her Womb and having finished her time for going with Child conceiving the hour of her delivery to be nigh at hand she had her Bed furnished her Cradle ready and all the implements appertaining to the purpose laid out for use But all these preparations came to nothing and Lucina was cross to her wishes for her customary paines quite left her and her Belly as it rose by degrees so it sunk againe and shee never sicke for the matter but she remained barren ever after I also knew a noble Matron who had borne above ten Children and whose Courses were never suppressed unless she were with Child But being afterwards married to another Husband besides other usual signes she apprehended her self to be with Child by the stirring of it which both she her self and her Sister also who then lay with her in bed did many times in the night perceive and all the Arguments I could suggest could not remove that perswasion from her till at the last all her hopes vanished into flatulency and fatness So that sometimes the most approved signes
the Male saith Aristotle the excrement of the Terms is drawn down for the Uterus being tepefied doth attract the humours and the passages are opened Whereupon a vast abatement of their distemper doth ensue for the Womb being unmindefull of his function many mischiefes do befall the Body in general because the Womb is a principal part which doth easily draw the whole body into consent with it No man who is but never so litle versed in such matters is ignorant what grievous Symptomes the Rising Bearing down and Perversion and Convulsion of the Womb do excite what horrid extravagancies of minde what Phrensies Melancholy Distempers and Outragiousness the praeternatural Diseases of the Womb do induce as if the affected Persons were inchanted as also how many difficult Diseases the depraved effluxion of the Terms or the use of Venus much intermitted and long desired do foment Nor is it less known how great an Alteration doth befall Virgins when their Uterus doth enlarge and is tepefied for they grow mature and their Complexion doth improve their Breasts strut forth they become more beautifull their Eyes glisten their Voice is more tunable their Gate Gesture and Discourse are more gracefull then formerly and their more grievous Distempers are at this time or never cured I knew a noble Lady which was wilde by reason of a Uterine Melancholy and Distemper for above ten years together and when all Remedies had been in vain employed she fell at last into the Bearing down of the Uterus which accident contrary to others judgement I did prognosticate would conduce to her health and perswaded her not to return her womb untill its distemper was asswaged by the outward cold aire the success was answerable to my perswasion and in a short time she was perfectly cured and her womb being at last restored to its seat did remaine there and she lives a healthy life even to this day I knew another Woman which was troubled with Hysterical symptoms such as no Applications could subdue who at length after many yeares was cured by the Bearing down of the Womb. And both these being relieved in their Symptoms I did restore their wombs to their places with happy success For the Uterus being by any sharp humour excited violently to expulsion doth not onely gently bear down but like unto the Right Gut when it is irritated by a troublesom Tenesmus doth precipitate it self outward Divers therefore is the Constitution of the Uterus and that not onely praeternatural but natural also namely in the time of Fecundity and Barrenness In young Girles and Women past Childing it is as I have said of the magnitude of a Bean and without any blood in a Virgin ripe for a husband it resembleth the bulk and form of a Pear in fruitfull Women and such as are apt to conceive it is as large as a small Gourd or a Goose-egge and doth likewise swell as the breasts do and growing more laxe and fleshy it becommeth warme and as Virgil speaketh of the Fields superat tener omnibus humor genitalia semina poscunt They all a flowing moisture have And so a fruitfull seed do crave Wherefore their Terms being now at hand or newly over whilest the warmth and moisture of the Part which are two necessary causes of Generation do remain Women are most apt to conceive And so other Animals likewise when they are excited to Venery their Genital parts are moist turgid and swelled And this Constitution I have found in the Womb before the Birth But in Women with Child the Uterus as hath been said doth extend according to the growth of the Infant and so enlargeth into a vast proportion I have found it presently after Delivery of the bigness of ones head and thicker then the middlefingers breadth and fraught with diverse vessels full of blood It is indeed a wonderful thing and as Fabricius noteth doth much exceed our humane apprehension that the so vast bulk of the Uterus should so much lessen in so short a space namely in the space of fifteen or twenty days For no sooner is the foetus and the After-burden excluded but the Uterus doth by degrees gather it self together streighteneth its Neck and retreateth it self towards the interiour parts being partly insensibly abated by a diaphoresis and partly dissolved into the Purgations and all the bordering parts the bones belly and all the Hypogastrical region are together contracted and grow sirme againe In the Purgations first of all pure blood then corrupt blood like that Water wherein flesh that is newly killed is washed and then paler blood doth issue forth our women doe call it lact is proventum the coming of the Milke when their purgations are now no longer died with blood because perhaps the Milk doth at that time flow more plenteous and sound for the Infant from the breasts and the purgations do then begin to diminish and dry away the alible juice being now translated from the Uterus to the breasts And yet other Animals do not require so great trouble in the business for the fore-said parts in them are in the compass of a day or two quite restored and perfectly consolidated Nay some of them as the Hare and the Coney in the space of an hour after they have kindled do admit the Buck and are again fructified by Coition As we have shewed that the Hen so soon as ever she hath layed is compressed by the Cock But Women alone as they onely have Termes so do they abound with after-purgings and do alone undergoe difficult and hazardous deliveries because their Uterus doth either unseasonably gather it self together by reason of weakness or else the After-purgings are depraved contrary to nature or do not come away kindly For it often befalls Women especially the more tender sort that the After-purgings being corrupted and grown noisome within do call in Feavers and other grievous Symptomes For the Womb being excoriated by the separation of the After-burden especially if the separation were violent like a large inward Ulcer is cleansed and mundified by the liberal emanations of the After-purgings And hereupon we conclude of the welfare or danger of a Woman in Child-bed according to her excretions If any part of the After-burden be left sticking to the Uterus the After-purgings will flow forth evil-sented green and as if they proceeded from a dead body and sometimes the courage and strength of the womb being quite vanquished a suddaine Gangrene doth induce a certain death In case any Clotted Blood or any other preternatural matter do remain in the cavity of the womb after the Delivery the Womb will neither retire upwards nor close its Orifice but its Neck will continue soft and open As I have had experience in a Woman which lying very sick of a Malignant Feaver and being very weak did suffer an Abortion who after the exclusion of the Foetus which was incorrupt and entire yet lay exceeding weak with a disorderly Pulse and
moneths continued Hereupon for the Rutting time when the Females are lusty and admit the Males whereby they conceive and bear their young I had a daily oportunity of dissecting them and of making inspection and observation of all their parts which liberty I chiefly made use of in order to the Genital parts We shall therefore disclose the Generation of all Viviparous Animals out of the History of the Hind and Doe as being the most commodious Exemplar treating thereof after the same manner as we have already handled the Generation of all Oviparous productions out of the History of the Hen-Egge And this not from any peculiar design of my own or for the same causes for which I did prefer the Hen-Egge to all other but because by the favour and bounty of my Royal Master whose Physitian I was and who was himself much delighted in this kind of curiosity being many times pleased to be an eye witness and to assert my new inventions I had great store of his Deere at my devotion and frequent opportunity and license to dissect and search into them I intend therefore to set before you the History of Hinds and Does composed out of my sundry observ ations for many years together whereby I my self am chiefly versed in them and from whence also something may be infallibly concluded concerning the Generation of other Viviparous Animals which History whilest we faithfully compile we shall also insert all those observable Occurrences which we have either casually met withall or else attained by intended dissections in other Animals namely such as are cloven-footed whole-hoofed and those which have their feet distinguished into toes as likewise in Man himself declaring the series or order of the Formation of the Foetus according to the several proceedings which Nature her selfe doth observe therein Of the Uterus of Hindes and Does EXER LXV BEing about to treat of the Formation and Generation of the Hinde and Doe we must first discourse concerning the place wherein those actions are performed namely the Uterus as we have already done in the History of the Hen that so those things which ensue may be more easily and rightly understood For in this very thing History hath the precedence of Romance and Fable namely in that she describes events with their just circumstance of set times and places and so guides us unto knowledge by a surer way But that we may the better conceive the Deere's Uterus we shall explain both the internal and external fabrick thereof taking our pattern from the womb of Women For Man who is the most consummate or complete Animal of all other as he hath obtained all other parts more perfect then they so are his Genital parts also And therefore the Uterine parts are most distinct in a Woman and to us by reason of the special industry of Anatomists about this Part better known Now in the Uterus of Hinds Does many things do occurr which you may discover to be the same in the womb of a Woman but yet some things do differ In the external orifice are neither the labra nor the Clitoris nor the Nymphae but onely two Orifices whereof one is the Orifice of the Bladder adjoined to the Share-bone the other of the Privity seated between the fundament and the Urmary cavity The membranous Cuticle like to that which we have noted in a Henne tending downwards from the fundament doth cover the veil and supply the office of the Nymphae labia of the Privity in order to its defence from outward injuries this veile is something retracted in a Woman in coition or at lest forced to retreat by the entrance of the Yard into the Orifice of the Privity The Suture or connexion of the Share-bones being divided in Hindes or Does and the leggs laid wide open the Bladder of Urine and Vagina Uteri or Privity wherein the Yard of the Male is entertained as also the neck of the Womb and its scituation are presently discovered together with the ligaments whereby it is fastened as likewise the Veines Arteries and Testieles as they call them also the Horns of the Womb even in these creatures are more remarkable then the other parts of it But as for the preparing and the leading or ejaculatory vessels there are no such things to be found here nor as farre as I know in any other Female whatsoever And Anatomists who suppose that the Female doth emit a seed in coition make too industrious an enquiry after them for they are not at all in some and in those in whom they are they are never found in the same manner or agreeing Wherefore it comes neerest to truth which also as I have observed the greater part of Women acknowledg namely that they do not emit any seed in coition And though the more salacious do discharge a certain moisture in coition yet I neither approve it to be fruitfull seed nor necessarily conducing to conception for very many do conceive without any such effusion at all and some also without any pleasure but of these more elsewhere The Privity or Vagina Uteri which is extended from the outward Orifice of the secret parts to the inward Orifice of the Womb is in a Doe as in a Woman seated between the Bladder of Urine and the Rectum intestinum or Right Gut and is correspondent to the Yard of the male in form largeness and longitude And being dissected is discovered to be furrowed with oblong wrinckles and rugosities and also made glibb and slippery with a stiffe moysture In its bottom you may perceive a more narrow and closed Orifice which is the beginning of the neck of the Uterus through which whatsoever is driven out from the cavity of the Womb doth make its passage And this is that Orifice which Physitians affirm to be so closely compressed sealed up and concluded in a Virgin and Woman with child that it will not admit the point of the finest Needle or Probe After this follows the Neck or Process of the Womb which is a much longer and rounder passage in them then in Women and in its whole extension from the bottom of the Privity to the Womb it self is much more fibrous thick and nervous then theirs And if you make incision into this Neck according to its longitude you shall discover not only its exteriour ingress which is conspicuous in the bottom of the Privity so exactly to connive and cling together that the air it self though driven by ones breath cannot arrive at the cavity of the Womb but also five alike streights more ranked in order blocked up against the access of any outward approacher and sticking firmly together by a glewy mucilage just as the most compact and narrow orifice of a Womans Uterus is locked up by a yellow glutinous substance And such narrow streights as these are discernable in the neck of the Sheeps Cowes and Goats womb all which are close locked up and forbid any admittance which Fabricius also
Mesentery the Meseraick Veins and Arteries are derived to the Guts so are the Uterine Vessels disseminated through the fore-said membrane in which also certain small Bladders and Glandules are on both sides discovered which Glandules Anatomists commonly call the Testicles The substance of the Horns of the Hindes and Does wombs is cuticular or skinny or else a fleshy skin or coat like that of the Guts besprinckled with certain slender Veins This coat you may as Anatomists use to do divide into several coats observing the several scituation of the fibers which serve to several functions namely to Retention and Expulsion For I have many times seen those Horns moving just like Earth-worms in the same manner as any man may perceive the Guts in an Animal newly killed and the abdomen or covering of the lower belly laid open stirring to and fro in a kinde of waving motion whereby as if they were close begirt and bound in by some small narrow ring or pressed and squeezed between ones fingers they crowd down and depress the Chyle Excrement towards the inferior Guts All the Uterine Veins do here as in a woman assume their original from the Hollow vein neer the Emulgents but the Arteries which they also do partake as well as Women do arise from the Branches of the Great Artery which pass into the Thighes and as in a woman great with child the Uterine Vessels which contain blood are more and greater then in the rest of her body so is it also with Hindes and Does which are with Fawn But the Arteries contrary to that Which we see in the rest of the body are much more numerous for their proportion then the Veines and being blown into they will distend fill their neighbour veins but the veins being in the same manner blown into will never do so much for them And this also I see taken notice of by the learned Riolanus and it is a prevalent argument for the Circulation of the Blood which was my Invention for it doth clearly evince a passage from the Arteries into the Veins but no retreat from the Veins into the Arteries again there are likewise more Arteries then Veins because the foetus requires great store of sustenance to supply his growth the remainder whereof fewer Veins are sufficient to return There are also Testicles discernable in these also as they are in Sheep Goat and all Animals which cleave the hoofe but such Testicles as resemble the Prostatae or seed Glandules and the Kennels of the Mesentery whose office is to secure the divarications of the Veins and retain a moisture in them whereby to keep the parts glib rather then things designed to the concoction of Prolifical seed and the Reservation or treasuring it up till it be fit for profusion in the time of Coition And this is my opinion of them both for sundry reasons elsewhere alledged as chiefly because that at the time of coition when the males Testicles are swelled with seed and full of seminal juice the Horns of the womb indeed are in Hindes and Does and all other Viviparous Animals wherein they reside much altered but the Testicles as they call them like things utterly unconcerned in the matter of Generation do neither swell nor differ any way from the constitution they were of either before or after coition affording no testimony at all of their use either in respect of Coition or Generation It is a wonderfull thing to see how great a quantity of geniture doth abound in the Testicles and much distended Seminal Vessels of the very masculine Moles and Mice about the time of their coition which we have also formerly observed in the Dunghill-Cock and how vast an alteration is espyed in the Genitals of both Sexes and yet these Glandulae or litle Kernels which men conceive to be the Testicles of the Females do still reserve their wonted appearance without any variation at all What we have hitherto observed concerning the Womb and the Horns thereof in Hindes and Does doth for the most part relate also to other Viviparous Animals though they differ in a Woman because she conceives in her womb but all the rest in the Horns of the womb except the Mare and the she-Ass and even they also though they seem to bear their Conception in the womb yet that place of Conception doth more resemble the nature and constitution of a Horn then of a Womb for that place is not bipartite but something more oblong and different from a womb both in scituation connexion fabrick and substance and ought rather to be compared to the superiour Uterus or process of the womb of the Hen wherein the Egge groweth and is encompassed with the White then to the womb of a Woman Of the Coition of the Hinds and Does EXER LXVI THe History of the Womb of Hinds and Does is such as hath been shewed Wherein we have briefly declared those things which did seem necessary to Generation namely the place of Conception and those parts which are ordeined thereunto It remaines that we now treat of the Action and Function of this place namely of Coition and Conception Hinds and Does do admit their Males at one only set time of the year that is about the midst of September after the Feast of the Holy Cross and they bring forth after the middest of June neer the Feast of Saint John Baptist So that they goe nine moneths not eight as Pliny would have it for they calve or bring forth with us at lest the nineth moneth after their first Rutting At Rutting time the males assemble themselves amongst the females but at other times they feed apart and the elder Deere as the Staggs do associate with their own Sex and the Hinds and Does keep company and feed among the other Hinds and Does together with the younger sort of Ducks and Fawns About a whole moneth their Rutting time continues which doth begin later if the season be dry but if it be moist and rainey sooner And therefore in Spain as I am informed they seldom rut before the Calends of October because moist weather comes not on there til then But in England their Rutting time seldom lasts beyond the middest of October At that time their lust enrages them so that they will assault or Doggs or Men when at other times they are shie and timorous and suffer themselves to be chased and put to flight upon the alarme of the least barking curre that is Every Male Deer knowes all his Females and will not indure any one of them to straggle but will pursue and bring her back to his Herd and being now grown very jealous of them he frequently surveyes them and rangeth them together And if perhaps a stranger Doe intrude among them he is not very passionate in her expulsion but affords her a fair departure but if another Male Deere address himself to this Herd he bids him a speedy defiance and charges him with his Head The
very Does were in all other points sound and something fat no less then their fellowes which I diffected at the same time About the End of October and the Beginning of November when the Rutting time is now concluded and the Females and Males part company the Uterus began to seem of a lesser bulk in some sooner and in others later and the wall or sides of the inner cavity appeared to tumefie as if it were puffed up for in those places where of late the litle Cells were there did now round gobbets extuberate inwards filling almost the whole capacity so that the sides now seemed to touch one another and glewed as it were together leaving no space vacant between them For as licorish Boyes while they plunder the honey-combs that they may greedily devour the honey have their Lips so stung by the Bees that they swell and grow tumerous and so streighten the gap of their Mouths in the same manner doth the interiour superficies of the Does Uterus become turgid and a most soft and pulpous substance like that of the Braine doth fill the cavity and involve the Caruncles in it And as for the Caruncles themselves they are no bigger then they were before but only appear something paler and as it were maderated or stewed in warm water as the Nurses nipples look presently after the Childe hath had the breast But I could not squeeze out any blood from them as before This interiour superficies of the Uterus being thus swolne it is at that time so tender and smooth as nothing can be more It resembles the softness of the brain it self and when you touch it did not your own eyes give evidence to that touch you would not believe your fingers vere upon it The cavity of the Womb being laied open immediately after the killing of the Deere I have often discovered a slow waving motion such a one as is seen in the bottom of a creeping Snailes belly as if the Womb were Animal in Animali one living creature in another and had a peculiar independent motion of its own Such a kind of motion as this I have as I mentioned but now often observed in the intestines of creatures dissected alive the same may be experimented both by the testimony of the sight and touch in live Dogs and Conies though you dissect them not I have likewise observed the same kind of motion in the Testicles and Scrotum of the Males and I have known some Women whom such palpitations have deluded with the hopes of being with Child But whether in Hysterical affections such as are the Ascent descent contortion of the Uterus the Womb of Women move and stir by such a kind of agitation as whether the Braine also in its conceptions be in like manner moved to and fro as the discovery is very difficult so is it vorthy the attempt A little while after the foresaid Extuberance of the interiour coat of the Uterus begins to shrink and lessen and in some but that is rare a certain purulent matter doth stick to the fides in manner of sweat such as is visible in wounds and ulcers when they are said to be Concocted and cast forth a white smooth and equall matter When I first discovered this kind of substance I was in suspence whether I should conceit it to be the seed of the Male or some concocted substance arising from it But because I did observe this matter but seldom and in few onely and also seeing twenty days were now past since any commerce with the male had been celebrated and likewise for as much as this substance was not thick clammy or froathy as seed is but more friable and purulent inclining to yellow I concluded that it arrived thither casually rather or else proceeded from over much sweat the Deere being newly quite spent in the chace and so in a Rheume falling down into the Nose the thinner portion of the Catarrh being thickened into a mucous substance puts on a yellow complexion This alteration in the Womb when I had often discovered to His Majesties sight as the first assay towards impregnation and having likewise plainly shewed that all this while no portion of seed or conception either was to be found in the Womb and when the King himself had communicated the same as a very wonderful thing to diverse of his followers a great debate at length arose The Keepers and the Huntsmen concluded first that this did imply that their conception would be late that year thereupon accused the drougth but afterwards when they understood that the rutting time was past and gone and that I stood stiffly upon that they peremptorily did affirm that I was first mistaken my selfe and so had drawn the King into my error and that it could not possibly be but that something at lest of the Conception must needs appear in the Uterus untill at last being confuted by their own eyes they sate down in a gaze and gave it over for granted But all the Kings Physitians persisted stiffly that it could no waies be that a conception should go forward unless the males seed did remain in the womb and that there should be nothing at all residing in the Vterus after a fruitfull and effectuall Coition this they ranked amongst their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Now that this experiment which is of so great concern might appear the more evident to posterity His Majestie for tryal-sake because they have all the same time and manner of conception did at the beginning of October separate about a dozen Does from the society of the Buck and lock them up in the Course neer Hampton Court Now lest any one might affirm that doubtlessly these did continue the seed bestowed upon them in Coition their time of Rutting being then not past I dissected diverse of them and discovered no seed at all residing in their Vterus and yet those whom I dissected not did conceive by the virtue of their former Coition as by Contagion and did Fawn at their appointed time In Bitches Conies and several other Animals I have certainly discovered that nothing after Coition is to be found in their Vterus for many daies together In so much that I am very well ascertained that in Viviparous as well as in Oviparous creatures the Foetus doth neither proceed from the Seed of Male and Female emitted in Coition nor yet from any commixture of that seed as the Physitians will have it nor yet out of the Menstruous blood as Aristotle conceits and likewise that there is not any thing of the conception necessarily in being presently after Coition And hence it follows that it is not true that in a prolifical coition any matter is ready at hand in the Vterus which matter or substance the Masculine seed should concoct coagulate and fashion or reduce into an actual generation or by drying its outward Superficies Form and After-birth to wrap it in For nothing at all is to be
their interiour superficies as it did direct it self towards the conception was full of black sanguineous points The Umbilical Vessels of the Foetus were not as yet inserted into these caruncles nor was the conception hitherto fastened to the Uterus As for that coat which they talk much of and call Allantoides I can finde no such matter in the conceptions of Ewes but afterwards when the foetus is now grown bigger when the Egge or Conception doth now cleave to the Uterus and the veins are inserted into the caruncles then is the Chorion extended farther and in its two ends or Appendixes as it were a certain humour died yellow you would conceive it to be an excrementitious humour is secluded and reserved apart from the rest As for a Humane Conception that hardly differs any thing from an Egg for the first moneths For before the After-birth or Uterine cake hath been framed I have seen a white humour like to the thinner White of the Egge and equal in magnitude to a Pigeons egge nay sometimes to a Pheasants encompassed in a slender membrane wherein the Embryo who was as long as the naile of the little finger did appear like a small frogge having a broad body a wide mouth and his armes and leggs newly shot forth like the young buds of flowers he had a prominent Occiput or After-braine which may be rather called a little bladder annexed like an appendix to the rest of the head as hath been mentioned in the first rudiment of the Occiput of chickens An other humane Conception I saw which was about fifty dayes standing wherein was an egge as large as an Hen-egg or Turkey-egg The foetus was of the longitude of a large Bean with a very great head which was over-looked by the Occiput as by a crest the Brain it self was in substance like Coagulated milk and instead of a solid scull there was a kind of Leather-membrane which was in some parts like a gristle distributed from the fore-head to the Roots of the Nose The Face appeared like a Dogs snout Without both Ears and Nose Yet was the rough Artery which descends into the Lungs and the first rudiment of the Yard visible The two deaf-ears of the Heart appeared like two black eyes In a Woman with childe who dyed of a Feaver I found an Hermaphrodite Embryo of almost the same bigness It s Privity was like that of a Cony the labra resembling the prepuce and the Nymphae the Glans or Nut. Above this privity I saw the first rudiments of a Yard to which there hung down on both Sides instead of Testicles the laxe or flaggy skin of the Scrotum or Cod. Its Uterus or womb was very litle resembling the Uterus of an aborted Lamb or Mole having both the Horns And as the Glandules or Kernels called Prostatae were scituate neer the Yard so also were the Testicles which were of a discernable magnitude placed next to those Horns So that according to outward appearance it did most express a Male childe but upon inward discovery of the Parts a Female The womb of the woman that bare it was very vast having the bladder of Urine adjoined to it as its Appendix but contrariwise in the Foetus the Bladder of Urine was large and the Uterus looked onely like its Appendix All these fore-mentioned humane Conceptions like the Ewes had a rough or wrinckled superficies outwardly and were dawbed over with a kinde of Gelly or glutinous substance and at that time there was neither any appearance of the After-burden nor yet any union of the Conception to the matrix nor any insertion of the Umbilical Vessels into the matrix or womb though they were disseminated into the superficies of the Conception Though diverse foetus are sometimes found in the same Conception of Hindes and Does as divers Chickens in the same white of a gemellifical Egg as it also happeneth in Ewes she-Goats and other cloven footed creatures yet in Bitches Conies Sowes and other Viviparous and Multiparous Animals the matter is clean otherwise for every foetus in them doth challenge two several humors and two distinct coats In Bitches there are several Knots through the whole cavity of the Horns of their uterus in which so many several humors are contained and in every one of them a several Foetus In the Hare and Cony which are Does you may perceive many round gobbets or balls such as the eggs of Serpents are like bracelets made of several Amber beads The Hares Conception is exceeding like an Acorn and the After-burden covereth it in manner of a Cup and the Humours contained in the membranes hang down like litle Acorns Of the manner how the Conception of Hindes and Does is found to be in the month of December EXER LXX IN the beginning of December the Foetus is now more grown and perfect being of a fingers length The Heart and other Bowels together with the Guts all which were formerly exposed to publick view are retreated into the hollow of the body so that you can neither discern them nor the motion of the Heart without dissection The Conception or Egge by the mediation of the five Caruncles in each Horn formerly spoken of is in five several places adjoined and fastned to the Uterus yet not so firmly neither but that a small force will disjoin them again Which being done you shal discern the different print of the Caruncles in the outward superficies of the Chorion by which Caruncles it was united to the Uterus the impression which they leave behinde them being rugged and viscous as if by that glew or paste the said adhesion or conjunction had been effected And thus have we revealed the Nature and use of these Caruncles for they which before like Warts or Mushroms were bred at the sides of the Uterus do now being knit to the conception supply the place and office of an After-burden or Uterine Cake as it is in Women namely they are instead of so many nipples from which the foetus by the assistance of his Umbilical Vessels doth derive to himself such Aliment as his Mother affords him as shall appear hereafter The Magnitude and capacity of the Vterus under which name we understand the Hornes of the Vterus namely the places of conception do enlarge according to the growth of the foetus but yet so that that Horn wherein the foetus setleth his abode is larger then the other Their conception or egge is one onely whether they produce a single or diverse Foetus and that single conception is dilated over both the Horns so that it looks like a brace of puddings or rather like one onely and that tied in the middle as hath been formerly said for passing along slender and round from the farthest part of the Horne on one side it doth by degrees enlarge and so goeth on to that common place which in a Woman we call the Womb and Matrix or Mother because a Woman
of Ingravidation have not onely deluded the silly Women but the experienced Midwives and the skilful Physitians themselves Wherefore since besides the deceits of Women themselves there are several false Indications of Gravidation we must not rashly determine of the Inordinate Birth before the Seventh Moneth or after the Eleventh The ordinary Computation of going with Child observeth that time which our blessed Saviour the perfectest of all men did fulfil in the Virgins Wombe namely from the day of the Annunciation which is in March to that blessed day of the Nativity which we celebrate in December And according to this Rule the Sager Matrons keeping their account while they cast in the wonted day in every moneth whereon they were accustomed to have their purgations they are seldom out of their Reckoning but ten Revolutions of the Moone beeng expired they are delivered and reap the fruit of their Wombe upon that very day whereon were it not for their Praegnation their Purgations would ensue As concerning the causes of the exclusion or delivery of the Foetus Fabricius besides that given by Galen wherein he delivers That the Foetus is so long continued in the Wombe till being now enlarged and made perfect he is capable of being sustained at the mouth by which argument the weaker sorts of Foetus ought to protract their continuance in the Wombe which yet is no such matter conceives the other reason and that the more rational one too to be the necessity that the Foetus standeth in of more large refrigeration procured by respiration because the Foetus so soon as it is borne doth presently respire but doth not so soon feed And this he affirmeth is not onely observable in Men and Beasts but chiefly in Birds which though they be small and have yet but a tender bill yet will the Chickens peck that part of the shell where they stand in most need of respiration which thing they doe being more streightned for Breath then Aliment Seeing that immediately as soon they are escaped out of the shell they doe respire but abstaine from meat two or three dayes together But whether Respiration be instituted for Refrigeration or for any other use we shall more largely debate elsewhere out of our Observations In the mean time I shall propose this Probleme to the Learned namely How the Embryo doth subsist after the seventh moneth in his Mothers womb when yet in case he were borne he would instantly breath nay he could not continue one small hour without it and yet remaining in the womb though he pass the ninth moneth he lives and is safe without the help of Respiration I shall deliver it yet more plainly How commeth it to pass that the Foetus being now borne and continuing yet covered over with his entire membranes and abiding still in his water can subsist for some hours space without any danger of suffocation and yet being shifted out of those membranes if he have but once attracted the Aire into his Lungs he cannot afterwards live a minute without it but dyeth instantly doubtless this is not for want of Refrigeration for in a difficult Delivery he sticketh fast in the streights without anȳ Respiration sometimes for some houres together and yet we find him alive but yet so soon as he hath escaped and tasted the vital air if you deprive him of it you destroy him in a moment So likewise in the Cesarean Section the Infant is taken out of his Mothers wombe many houres after his Mothers decease and yet he is found alive and continueth safe without the use of Aire though he lye intombed in the Secundines but having once attracted the Aire though you instantly restore him to the Secundines againe he will expire for want of breath Whosoever doth carefully consider these things and look narrowly into the nature of Aire will I suppose easily grant that the Air is allowed to Animals neither for refrigeration nor nutrition sake For it is a tryed thing that the Foetus is sooner suffocated after he hath enjoyed the Aire then when he was quite excluded from it as if the Heat within him were rather inflamed then quenched by the Aire But thus much we have discovered by the way concerning Respiration being perhaps resolved to discuss the debate more fully in its proper place then which disquisition you shall hardly meet with a more nice for it is debated with Arguments of almost equall weight on both sides I return to the Birth which Fabricius conceiveth to come to pass besides the fore-mentioned necessity of Respiration and want of Sustenance because the Foetus being grown bigger doth press out by his weight and also can be no longer conteined within by reason of his large bulk and likewise saith he the Excrements are so multiplied that there is no longer place for them in the membranes But we have already proved that the humours in the Wombe are not Excrementitious Nor is the reason deduced from the Weight and Magnitude of the Foetus more available then the former for the Foetus swimming aloof in the humours is scarce any burden at all to the After-birth or Womb for some Infants of nine moneths are very litle and less then some others of eight moneths onely yet can they no longer subsist in the Womb. And as to the Weight Twins of eight moneths do preponderate any one single Foetus whatsoever though of nine moneths abode in the Womb yet are they not born till the nineth moneth Nor can we quarrel at the scarcity of Aliment since at that time there is entertainment enough even for Twins and sometimes for more Infants and also the milk which is conducted to the Breasts of Women in Child-bed being recalled to the Uterus would as conveniently supply the foetus in the Womb as out of it I shall rather impute the cause of being born to the juice conteined in the Amnion which being most proportionate to the nourishing of the Foetus doth either much faile or else is depraved by the admixture of the superfluities As I have also hinted before But as for the diversity of going with Child which is contrary to the time allotted by Nature which diversity doth chiefly respect Women I do ascribe it to the custome of living the infirmity of the constitution and the several passions incident to Women And therefore those tame Animals which live amongst us by reason of their lazy lives and plenty of food are of more incertainty in their times of Coition and production then wild Beasts which live according to Natures intent Likewise sickly Women have easier and greater dispatch in their Travaile then others but it falls out clean contrary to such Women whose strength is very much consumed For the same thing befalls them as happeneth to Plants whose fruits and seeds do more slowly and seldom arrive to maturity in cold Countries then to other Plants of the same kind which are in a fat and warm soile So Orenges in England adhere
to the trees almost two whole years together before they come to maturity and Figgs also scarce ever arrive at any perfection here which are ripe in Italy twice or thrice a year And the like befalleth the fruits of the Womb namely the Foetus is brought to maturity sooner or later by reason of the scarcity or plenty of Aliment the imbecillity or strength of the body and the orderly or inordinate regiment of life according to the six non-naturall things recited by Physitians Fabricius hath described the Manner of the Birth thus The Womb being dilated by the weight of the Foetus in so much that it can now be no farther distended and thereupon being excited to disburden it self is by the motion of the transverse fibres gathered up into it selfe and so contracted into a narrower compass And therefore whereas before neither the Excrements by means of their abundance nor the Foetus by reason of his weight could be conteined any longer the Uterus being more streightned and drawn together then it was can be much less able to contein them and therefore first the membranes as being the weaker parts and more distended do break and the humour which is most fluxile doth first pass out to make the parts glibbe And hereupon the Foetus followeth as being not onely increased in his weight by reason that he now no longer swimmeth in the humour and so descendeth downwards forcing the Orifice of the Womb but as being also compressed driven forward and shut out by the action of the Womb itselfe in which act on the muscles of the Abdomer together with the Midriffe are wonderfully assistant By which words he describes the ejectment of the Excrements of the Guts and an Abortion rather then a Natural Birth for though the membranes in Women do for the most part break and so disload the Water before the Birth yet that is not always so for other Animals do not bring forth as they do but produce the Entire Conception together namely the foetus together with the Secundines as we may observe in Ewes Mares Bitches and other Animals and especially in the Viper which doth conceive within an Egge which is of one onely colour having a soft shell such as the humane conception is and continueth that Conception so long within her until a foetus be formed thereout which she doth produce wrapped up in a membrane which membrane according to Aristotle is broken up the third day And yet it so happeneth sometimes that the young ones are produced having eaten through the membranes while they are yet in the Uterus And so also it is no novelty to experienced Midwives that their Women do sometimes bring forth their Conceptions whole and entire without any breach in the Membranes at all And this kind of birth seemeth to me the most Natural wherein the foetus like a mellow fruit which droppeth from the tree without shaking out its seed before the time assigned by nature is born with the Secundines embracing it But where it cometh otherwise to pass and the After-burden doth adhere to the Uterus after the Child is borne it is oftentimes hardly divided from it and doth induce evil Symptomes which are accompanied with noisome smells and sometimes with a Gangreen whereby the Mother is brought into imminent danger Because therefore the Birth described by Fabricius is not agreeable to all kinds of Births but onely to Women and not to all their Births neither but to such onely whose Births are premature and as it were forced it is to be ranked rather amongst preternatural precipitate and in some sort abortive productions In a Natural and Genuine Birth therefore two things are required which are assistant the one to the other that is to say the Woman in travaile and the Foetus which is to be produced Both which except they be ripe for the business the Birth is hardly successful For if the Foetus being disquiet and coveting to be enlarged doe prevent his parent by exciting her and offering violence to her womb or if the Mother by reason of the infirmity of her retention as if her womb were disturbed with a kind of nauseousness or by some necessity of expulsion be before hand with the Infant the Birth is to be reputed a Disease or Symptome rather then a Natural and critical Production As also when some parts of the conception escape out and others are stil retaind within namly if the Foetus attempt a departure ere the After-burden be dismissed from the sides of the Womb or else the After-burden on the contrary be loose from the Uterus the foetus being not rightly composed nor the Uterus relaxed for the accommodation of the work And therefore the younger more giddy and officious Midwives are to be rebuked which when they hear the woman in travaile cry out for paine and call for help lest they should seem unskilful at their trade and less busie then comes to their share by daubing over their hands with oyles and distending the parts of the Uterus do mightily bestirre themselves and provoke the expulsive faculty by medicinal potions so that being impatient of a competent expectation by their desire to hasten and promote the Birth they do rather retard and pervert it and make it an unnatural and difficult delivery and leaving the Membranes or some part of the After-burden still adhering to the Womb they do both expose the poor women to the injuries of the Aire and vainly perswading them to their three-legged stoole weary them out and bring them in danger of their lives It is much happier with poor women and those that dare not own their great bellies where the Midwives help is never required for the longer they retain and retard the Birth the easier and more successfull proves the delivery And therefore there are chiefly two sorts of Unnatural Births namely when the foetus is either born before or after the time allotted by nature and this is a kinde of Abortive Birth and the Birth proves difficult and painful because it doth not succeed in that manner and order as it ought to do or else is hindered by some bad Symptomes which cometh to pass cheifly for two reasons namely in that the Mother doth faile in her expulsive office or else that the Foetus is himself but sluggish and so doth not promote his own release for a facile and natural delivery relieth upon the endavour and joint furtherance of both parties Fabricius doth ascribe the work of bringing forth to the Uterus to which performance saith he the Muscles of the Lower Belly and the Midrifle are assistants But when I consider the matter throughly the throws of the woman in travaile do seem to proceed from the Motion and Agitation of all the Body just as we find it in Sternutation I knew a young Woman which by reason of her extream torment in her travaile fell into a Sowne and became instantly so consternated stupid and
is placed below and neer to these humours being alwaies present with them Adde also moreover that a certain mucous and pituitous substance is alwaies found about the orifice of the womb But in my opinion this worthy man is mistaken for the Neck of the womb is not hard by complication but of its own essence and nervous constitution and likewise those accidental Causes which he alledgeth are of litle advantage to this purpose For doubtless this is done by the Divine Providence of Nature as well as the rest of the wonderfull Fabrick of the Body which doth direct her workmanship to a certain End Action and Use The Wombs constitution therefore is such that in the first Conception it should have its nervous Orifice constringed for retention sake which afterwards in the delivery of the foetus like the fruit in the Tree doth of hard become soft and mellow for the convenience of expulsion and that not from any unfolding but from the alteration of its Temper for even the connexion of the bones themselves namely the Synchondrosis of the Haunch-bone with the Share and Holy-bone the synneuresis or natural union or coalition of the Rump or utmost end of the Os Sacrum is dissolved and mollified It is indeed a wonderfull thing that the litle bud of a growing Nut as suppose of the Kernel of an Almond or other Fruit should break those bones which a Malet can hardly bruise and that the tender fibers of the Ivy-root crawling along the narrow chinks or crannies of stones should at last demolish large walls But it is nothing so wonderfull that the genital parts of Women which are relaxed in the birth should afterward harden and draw themselves together because it is natural to those parts especially if we consider that the Yard of the Male is in coition very much stretched and hardened and anon doth flagge and soften We are more to admire which is beyond all plicature or folding that the substance of the Uterus is not onely dayly amplified and distended according to the growth of the foetus as if it were according to the opinion of Fabricius unfolded but doth grow thicker more carnous and stronger then before That indeed is more wonderfull yet as Fabricius admireth it that the so large bulk of the Uterus should in so few dayes space by the customary purgations of Child-bed return to its pristine dimensions since it is not so in other â—umours and impostumations which consisting of praeternatural and digestive faculties which rebell against the expulsive are longer under cure And yet this is no more admirable then the other works of Nature for all things are filled with the Deity and the God of Nature displayeth himself in all things In the last place Fabricius doth most admire that those Vessels of the Embryo namely the Oval perforation out of the Hollow-vein into the Venal Arterie and the passage from the Arterial Vein into the Aorta whereof we have treated at large in our Tract of the Circulation of the Blood should presently after the birth wither and be obliterated and is enforced to betake himself to that reason cited by us before out of Aristotle namely that all parts are constituted for some Action ot other and that Action being taken away the parts also themselves do vanish As the Eye seeth the Eare heareth the Braine perceiveth the Stomack concocteth not because they are endowed with such a kinde of temper and fabrick but those organs are therefore endowed with such a kinde of temper and fabrick that so they may perform the Functions assigned them by Nature By which argument it appeareth that the Uterus is the chiefest of the Parts dedicated to Generation for the Testicles are constituted for the geniture or seed but the seed for coition and coition it self or emission of seed that the Uterus may receive fecundity and so generation ensue thereby We have formerly said that the Egge is as it were the fruit of Animals and as it were an exposed Womb. Now on the contrary we shall contemplate the Uterus as an Egge residing within For as Trees at set times do flourish with leaves flowers and fruits and Oviparous Animals do sometimes generate eggs and lay but sometimes they grow emerit and the place or part which did contain them is not to be found so also Viviparous Animals have their Spring and Autumne At the Seasons of fecunditie and generation the Genital parts especially in Females are very much altered insomuch that the Ovary in Birds which at other times is conspicuous doth then appear something turgid and the Belly of Fishes about the time of Spawning doth much exceed all the rest of their body by reason of the multitude of their eggs and affluence of their seed or spawne In many Viviparous Animals the Genitals namely the Uterus and Spermatical Vessels are perceived to be at some times of a diverse Constitution Temper and Fabrick but as they grow pregnant or forbear to be so so do they diversly change so that a man can hardly know them for the same things For as in Nature nothing is wanting so there is no superfluity And therefore the Genital parts when there is no more use of them do wither are retracted and as it were obliterated and expunged At the times of Coition the Testicles are conspicuous in male Hares and Moles and the Hornes are then visible in the Uterus of their females It were strange to relate how great an affluence of seed is then conspicuous in the larger sort of Moles and Mice in which at other times no seed at all is to be seen but their Testicles are extenuated and retracted into their Bellies but when they forgoe impregnation there is hardly any such thing as a Uterus to be perceivd insomuch that it is a difficult matter to distinguish Male from Femal The Womb doth chiefly in Women exceedingly vary both in Temper as also in those Adjuncts which follow the Temper namely Scituation Magnitude Figure Colour Thickness Hardness Density Unripe Virgins as their Breasts are no bigger then the Breasts of Boyes so is their Uterus very small white of a skinny substance destitute of Veines and in magnitude not exceeding the top of ones Thumb or a large Bean. So also antient Women as their breasts do sink so have they a retreated flaggy lank pallid Womb void of Veins and Blood Which I also conceive to be the cause why Women growing Antient have not their monthly Termes but that they descend into the Haemorrhoides or else do abruptly forsake them and so endanger their health But when the Womb is now chill and as it were defunct all the Veins and Arteries thereof are expunged the superfluous blood when it boileth doth either restagnate or divert its course into the neighbouring Haemorrhoids But on the contrary in pale Virgins and such as have the Green sickness whose Womb is slender and their Terms are at a stay by Coition with
in a cold sweat as if she were a dying I perceived the Orifice of her Womb was lax soft and very open and her After-purgings were something noisome whereupon I suspected that something did lurke in her Womb which did putrefie and putting in my hand I extracted a false Conception as bigge as a Goose-egge which was made of a most thick nervous and almost gristly substance having some perforations in it whereout did issue a viscid and putrefied matter and immediately upon this she was discharged of those greivous Symptomes and suddainly after did perfectly recover When the Neck of the Womb doth a litle contract it self and thereupon the Clotted Blood doth get out though not without pain and difficulty causing those paines which our Midwives call the After-throws the danger is then supposed to be over and indeed it is usually so because it is a signe of the strength and firmness of the Uterus collecting it self easily together whereby the After-purgings are more readily expelled and the Woman is the sooner well But I have known the Orifice of the Womb draw together so close in some immediately after the delivery that the Blood being deteined in the Womb and thereupon suddenly putrefying and thickening into Clots did induce most greivous Symptomes and when no means would availe to unburden them a present death insued A very Honourable Lady in Child-bed falling into a feaver by reason no After-purgings came from her had her Privities swoln and scortching the Orifice of her Matrix being hard and shut up I did open it a litle way by force with an Iron Instrument that so I might immit an Injection by a litle Syringe whereupon black clotted and noisome blood did issue out even to some certain pounds weight whereby she received present ease The Wife of a Doctor of Divinity who was of a good habit of Body enough but being Barren did consult me and being very desirous of Children she had tried many Medicines and Physicians but all to no purpose she had her Termes at the usual times but sometimes especially when she had rod on Horse-back some corrupt and purulent substance did issue from her Which presently after would stop again Some conceived it to be the Whites others suspected it to be some deep Ulcer being perswaded thereunto chiefly because her flux was not constant and by litle and litle but by certain Intervalls and much at a time Whereupon by the help of a Speculum Matricis they did survey all the sheath of the Uterus and did apply several Medicines but all in vain At last I being called did open the inward Orifice of the Womb and presently there did issue forth to the quantity of two spoonfulls of corrupt matter sprinkled with bloody streaks Which when I perceived I told them that there lay an Ulcer lurking in the cavity of her Womb and by injecting proper Medicaments I restored her to her former health But being intent upon the cure and seeing the ordinary remedies did litle availe I applied more forcible ones because I suspected that the Ulcer was inveterate and perhaps with flesh growing upon it wherefore to my former injections I added a litle Roman Vitriol by whose acrimony the Uterus being extimulated did grow so hard that it did seem as hard to the touch as a Stone and occasioned several Hysterical Symptomes withall which Physitians commonly conceive to proceed from the suffocation of the Matrix and foul vapours being thence sent upwards This inconvenience continued a while till the Uterus being asswaged by milder applications and such as abate pains did relax its Orifice againe and did exclude the sharp liquour which I had injected together with a putrid matter Whereby the Patient was in a short time restored I conceived it convenient to transferre this History out of my Medicinal Observations to this place that it may evidently appear of how sharp and quick a sense the Uterus is and how easily it doth close it self upon the presence of its adverversary especially in a greivous and difficult Lying in Now these casualties are most incident to Women above all other Creatures and of them to those that are tenderly brought up and doe lead a sedentary and lazy life as also to such as are of a sickly constitution and do easily fall into distempers For Country Women and such as take great paines are not so dangerously ill upon so smal grounds Some of these will be with Child again within a moneths time when as the other are often out of order for two years after Hippocrates allotteth as many daies for the Afpurgings as for the formation of the foetus and therefore more for a female then a male Child But that witness Scaliger is false For none of our Women are purged above a moneth after their delivery many not beyond fifteen daies and some but seven nay I have known a Woman who was cleansed in three days even after she had brought forth Twins Galen hath many things concerning this subject in his Book 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Women as the report goeth in the New-found Land keep close the day of their delivery but the next day returne to their ordinary emploiments I will onely adde for conclusion a memorable relation delivered to me from the Noble Lord George Carew Baron of Tatnes and for a long time President of Munster in Ireland who also wrote the Annals of those times There was a Woman bigge with Child which followed her Husband who was a Souldier in the Army and the Army being daily in motion was it seemes forced to make a Halt by reason of a litle River that run cross the place whether they intended to March whereupon the poor woman finding her labour come upon her retired to the next thicker and alone by her self without any Midwife or other preparation brought forth Twins which she presently carried to the River and there washed both her self and them which done she wrapt her Infants into a course cloath and tied them to her back and that very day marched along with the Army twelve mile together bare-footed and was never the worse for the matter The next day after the Deputy of Ireland the Lord Montioy who at that time was General of the Army against the Spaniards at the siedge of Kingsale and the President of Munster being affected at the strangeness of the story did both vouchsafe to be God-fathers to the Infants Of the Membranes and Humours of the Uterus HIeronymus Fabricius recounteth four sorts of bodies which do consist without the Foetus namely the Umbilical Vessels the Membranes Humours and fleshy substance Concerning which I shall briefly declare wherein I differ in opinion from him by the instigation of several Observations but first I shall succinctly lay down his opinion There are saith he three Membranes two whereof do encompass the Infant throughout but the third doth not Of those which do incompass the Foetus one is the interiour
Uterus and of the Ureters which lye retracted under this covering as under a praepuce or fore-skin as in the Lap of a Woman the passage into the womb and bladder is vailed by the labra of the privity and the parts called Nymphae so that without dissection or at lest some forcible retraction of that covering neither the passage of the Excrements out of the guts nor of the Urine out of the Ureters nor of the Egg out of the Uterus can appear in a Hen. And therefore those two excrements namely the Urine and the Dung are rejected both together as out of a receptacle common to them both by lifting up of that covering so disclosing the perforation and so likewise in coition the Hen unvaileth her lap and accommodateth it for the Cock that treadeth her as Fabricius observed in a Turkey-Hen which courted a Cock I have seen an Ostrich-Hen when her Keeper gently stroked her back with designe to inflame her groveling on the ground lift aside that vaile and expose and stretch out her lappe which the Cock perceiving being instantly cupidstruck proceeded to tread her and having one leg on the ground and the other on her back with an exceeding large Yard of the dimensions almost of a Neats-tongue pursued his attempt great was the noise and clamours on both sides and their necks often extended and retracted and many other expressions of content Nor is this proper to Birds onely but common also to other Creatures which by removing aside their Taile and extending their Lap prepare themselves to receive the Male. So that the Tail in other creatures seems to be almost of the same use with the Vail in the Hen which unless it be removed or lifted up there is neither passage for the excrements nor the addresses of the Male. In Hinds and Does as if they were more severely chast then other beasts such a skreen of modesty and skinney covering shrowdeth both the lap and passage of urine which must of necessity be lifted up ere they can have conversation with the Male. In Beasts also that have tailes there must be an elevation of them before they can bring forth their young And Midwives also by unction and retrusion of the extremity of the os sacrum do facilitate womens labours A certain Chirurgion of my acquaintance an honest man being returned from the East-Indies told me upon his credit that in the Island called Bornea in the Inland and Hilly parts of it there are a race of men born with Tails as Pausanias writes of another place and that he saw a Virgin of that flock whom they had much ado to catch for they are wilde who had a fleshy thick tail a span long reflected between her leggs to conceale her modesty such care hath nature to hide those parts The fabrick of this Covering in a Hen is like to that of the upper lid of the eye composed of skin and of a fleshy and musculous membrane with fibers every where drawn from the circumference to the Center and its inward superficies like that of the eye-lid and fore-skin is soft It hath also in its extremity a semicircular small gristle like the Tarsus of the eye-lid and beside that between the skin and fleshy membrane a cartilaginous interstitium from the root of the rump joined in a right angle to the semicircular Tarsus or gristle as Batts have a kind of litle taile concealed under their membranous wings by reason of which composition this covering doth as it were with a taile shelter and hide the perforations of the privities Wherefore no sooner is this protection cut away but certain perforations appear whereof some are more apparent others more obscure The more visible are that of the fundament and the lap namely the passage of the excrements and the entrance into the womb the obscurer are as well that through which the urine flowes from the kidnies as also that smaller one found out by Fabricius into which saith hee the Cock doth immit his seed which cavity notwithstanding Antonius Ulmus a diligent dissector in Aldrovandus did not own nor any one else besides Fabricius so far as I know These Holes are all so neer neighbours the one to the other that they seem all to consent and pass into one and the same cavity which because it lies in common both to the excrement and the urine may be called the Sink because in it the excrements of the guts together with the urine descending from the reines are mixed together till they be together excluded And through this the egge also passing forth worketh its way The making of this cavity is such as if both the excrements descended into the Bladder and nature did abuse the urine into a natural clyster And therefore it is something thicker and ruggeder then the gut and also in ejection and coition thrusts it self out the covering as I have said being removed and hangeth out like the inside of the gut and at that time all the holes appear distinctly which presently again upon its retraction being collected as it were into a purse are hidden out of sight The more conspicuous Holes namely that of the fundament and the lap obtain a contrary scituation in all fowles from all other creatures for in these the Pudendum or female genital is seated foremost between the right gut and the bladder but in those the passage of the Excrement is placed foremost and between that passage and the rump the passage into the matrix But that Hole into which Fabricius thinketh the Cock doth cast his seed is discovered between this doore of the matrix and the rump But for my part I acknowledge no such employment of it for in Pullets or young Hens it is hardly found at all but in grown fowle it is promiscuously as well in the Cock as in the Hen. And besides that this hole is very small and obscure and cannot therefore be imagined to be of so concerning an office for it scarce admits the point of a small needle or a slender hair and terminateth also in a blind and obscure cavity nor could I ever perceive any seminal humour at all in it though Fabricius affirmeth that the semen is there reserved as in a purse for a whole year together and that in the interim all the eggs receive fecundity from thence as shall be discoursed hereafter All Birds Serpents Four-footed beasts which are Oviparous and Fishes also as is evident in Carps are endowed with Kidnies and Ureters through which the Urine floweth which Aristotle and other Philosophers hitherto knew not But Birds and Serpents whose Lungs are fungous have but very litle urine because they drink but litle and that by sips and therefore they need no Bladder of Urine but do deposit it as we have said into the common sink and receptacle with the dryer excrements But in Carps and some other fishes I have found a Bladder of Urine In a Hen the Ureters
should get in and that the seed should finde admission into the inner cavity of the Uterus is scarce probable for I could not trace a way inward with either probe or bristle nor could Fabricius neither nay if you will credit his testimony the very aire cannot be blown into the womb which I suppose was the cause why he describing the history of the Egge proceedeth from the interiour to the exteriour parts And also considering this fabricke of the womb he denyeth the seed to attain so farre as the cavity of the womb or to constitute any part of the egge of which opinion I willingly profess my selfe For you shall finde nothing at all in a fertile egge either added or altered which is not in an addle one to give any suspicion of the entrance of the Cockes seed into the womb or egge But yet though all the egges are without the accession of the Cock subventaneous and addle yet by his assistance even for a good while after his treading the subsequent egges of which there is yet no principle or matter out of which they can be made become fertile Fabricius that he may express after what manner the seed of the Cock maketh the egges fertile hath these words Since no seed at all appeareth in the egge and yet it is cast by the cock into the womb it may be demanded to what purpose the cocks seed is cast into the womb if it pass not into the egge as also if the seed be not in the egge how can the egge be made fertile by that seed which is not in it My opinion is that the seed of the cocke injected into the beginning of the womb doth make the whole womb and also all the yolks that come into it and lastly the whole egge fertile and that it doth this by its vertue or spiritual irradiating substance after the same manner as we perceive other creatures become fertile by the testicles and seed for if any man consider that incredible transmutation which doth seize upon a creature that is gelded by which it looseth its heat vigour and fecundity in the whole body he will easily consent that what we say may well befall the single womb of a Hen. But that it is most true that the power of rendering all the egges fertile together with the womb it self proceedeth wholly from the seed of the Cocke appeareth even from the practice of women which having a Hen without a Cock commit her for a day or two to a neighbours Cock and from this small commerce all the eggs are endowed with fertility for all that year And this is also confirmed by Aristotle who is of opinion that after birds have once had the advantage of coition almost all the egges they lay afterward are fertile Now lest the vertue of making fertile which is contained in the seed should by any means exhale or evaporate but that it may remaine long in the womb and so be imparted to the whole nature hath concluded and treasured it up as it were in a purse in the cavity neer the fundament which is annexed to the womb to which there is onely an entrance but no retreat so that the seed being there long detained its vertue may be the better preserved and communicated to the whole womb But I did doubt the verity of the foresaid experiment and that the rather because I perceived the Philosophers words were falsly recited for hee doth not say that Birds when they once have had the advantage of coition almost all the egges they lay are fertile but they lay almost all their egges where the word Fertile is superadded by Fabricius for it is one thing to say that Birds are with egge after coition and another thing to say that those egges are made fertile by coition And this is more manifest by Aristotles precedent words where he saith In Birds not so much as those very egges which are begotten by coition can for the most part gain their just growth unless that coition be continued And the reason is because that as in women by coition with the male the menstruous excrement is drawn forth for the womb being warmed draweth the moysture and the pores are opened so it falls out in birds whilest the menstruous excrement cometh by litle and litle which cannot get out because it is but litle and is contained above about the diaphragma but slideth down into the womb it self For with this the egge is nourished as the foetus of viviparous creatures is nourished with that which comes in at the Navel For after birds have once been at tread they still persist to have almost all their eggs but yet small ones and imperfect and therefore barren for the perfection of an egge is its fecundity If therefore without continued coition not so much as those very eggs which are conceived by that coition do attain their Growth or as Fabricius interpreteth it their Perfection much less can those egges be fertile which the Birds persist to lay without coition But let no man think that these words namely the womb being warmed draweth and the pores are opened do any way conclude that the womb can draw the seed of the Cocke into its cavity for we must take notice that the Philosopher doth not say that the womb draweth the seed from without but that in women the menstruous blood is drawn out of their own bodies the veines and passages being opened by the heat caused by coition and so likewise in Birds that the blood is drawn to the womb it being warmed by repeated coition and that the eggs do thence encrease as the foetus of viviparous creatures do by the Navel But what he adjoineth concerning that cavity or purse in which he fancyeth that the seed is entertained even for a whole year together is confuted by us formerly where we affirm that no seed at all is contained in it and that both henns and cocks indifferently have that cavity Wherefore though I easily believe if by fertility we understand an encrease of more and fairer eggs that poor womens henns whose poultry probably wanteth good feeding will lay lesser and fewer egges except they have resort to a cock according to that of the Philosopher namely If they once mixe with a cocke then they continue to have fairer better and more egges for the whole ensuing year to which end also plenty and wholesomness of feeding do very much conduce yet that hennes by some few acts of coition with a cock should lay all fertile egges for a whole year together that I say seemeth to me improbable For if a few acts of coition were of force to so lasting a generation Nature which maketh nothing in vain would have made the male birds less salacioâ— then they are nor would the cocke so often in one day invite his hennes to Venery nay sometimes force a rape upon them Wee all know how the henne so soon as she forsaketh the
an infallible principle it is no great wonder if afterwards according to every mans particular conjecture many false opinions do creep in For they are quite beside their mark who conceive that after coition some kinde of substance or matter doth remain fit and convenient for the production of the foetus or first conception or that any thing else is formed in the cavity of the womb which may be of like use with the seed which is sowen in the bowels of the earth For it is most certain that in the Uterus of a Hen and the same thing shall be afterwards evidenced of all females whatsoever upon coition nothing is to be discovered more then was there before And therefore it is clear that Fabricius is out when he saith As a Viviparous animal is incorporated of a litle quantity of seminal matter but that which sustaineth him afterward is in a great aboundance so also the litle Chalazae are sufficient for the generation of the Chicken but all the other parts conteined in the Egge serve onely for his nourishment By which words he declares that he conceived such a kinde of substance was at hand in the Egge for constituting the model of the foetus lest hee should seem to recede any thing from the definition of an Egge delivered by Aristotle namely An Egge is that thing out of part of which an Animal is produced and the remainder of which becomes the nourishment for it when it is produced And this therefore seemed an invincible Argument to Fabricius Since there are three onely parts in the Egge namely the White the Yolk and the Chalazae and the two first do only administer nutriment to the Chicken it must needs be that the Chalazae only are the matter out of which the Chicken is constituted Thus then it fell out that this able Anatomist while he sought in the Egge some convenient matter out of which to constitute the Chicken being benighted by a vulgar Heresie lost his way And this inconvenience doth likewise befall many men more who forsaking that light which the frequent dissection of bodies and the familiar converse with Natures selfe would help them to doe yet persist to make discoveries out of their owne conjectures or some conceived probable arguments or the Authority of former Writers when they themselves ought to look into the matter and assent to it by their own sense No wonder therefore that infinite errours which were delivered over by common consent from the first dawning of Antiquity are handed down even to our times and that so by that means men otherwise very ingenious are egregiously deluded because they conceive it plentifull satisfaction of minde to them that they finde it in Books and have their memories well loaded with sage sentences For they that are thus Philosophers extraduce by descent and derivation are just as wise as their owne Libraries To conclude therefore there is in an Egge as we have often said no distinct part or disposed matter out of which the foetus may be formed and fashioned but as in the seeds of Plants there is a litle point or budding shot out so is there in an Egge a small Cicatrice or Macula which being inspired with plastical endowments enlarges it self into the Oculus or Colliquamentum out of which and in which the primordia of the Chicken namely the Blood and Punctum saliens are ingendered nourished and augmented till they become a complete Chicken Nor is Aristotles definition of an Egge true where he will have it to be that out of part of which the Chicken is made and nourished by the rest unless you understand it thus An Egg is that out of part of which a Chicken is framed not as out of its Matter but as Vir ex Puero a Man is made out of a Boy or thus An Egge is a perfect conception out of which the Chicken is said partly to be made and partly to be nourished or lastly thus An Egge is that thing whose liquors do serve both for the Matter and Nourishment of the parts And in this sense Aristotle teacheth That the matter of the foetus in women is menstruous Blood which while it is poured into the womb by the veines Nature emploies it to another use namely to the use of Generation that such another creature may be made as it would have been for it is already such in potentiâ in possibility as the bodies from whence it was separated that is the Mothers What the Matter of the Chicken is and how the Chicken is formed in the Egge EXERCIT. XLV SInce therefore the truth cannot as I suppose be attained out of the opinions of other men whether they be confirmed by either their naked authority or probable argumentations unless wary experience be imployed in the discovery we shal declare to you out of Natures own Volum and clear Observations what the Matter of the Foetus is and how it is formed thence I have declared that one thing is made out of another as out of its Matter two several wayes and that as well in artificial as natural Productions but especially in the Generation of Animals The First is when one thing is made of another thing that is pre-existent and thus a Bedstead is made out of Timber and a Statue out of a Rock where the whole Matter of the future fabrick was existent and in being before it was reduced into the subsequent shape or any tittle of the design begun But the other way is when the matter is both made and receiveth its form at the same time As therefore Artificial productions are perfected two several waies one when the Artificer cuts and divides the matter which is provided to his hands and so by paring away the superfluous parts doth leave an Image remaining behinde as the Statuary doth the other when the Potter formes the like Image of Clay by adding more stuff or augmenting and so fashioning it so that at one and the same time he provides prepares fits and applies his materials and in this way an Image or Figure may be rather said to be made then fashioned so likewise in the Generation of Animals some are formed and transfigured out of matter already concocted and grown and all the parts are made and distinguished together per metamorphosin by a metamorphosis so that a complete Animal is the result of that Generation but some again having one part made before another are afterwards nourished augmented and formed out of the same matter that is they have parts whereof some are before and some after other and at the same time are both formed and grow Now the Fabrick or constitution of these proceeds from some one part as from its original and by the help of that the other members are produced and these we say are made per Epigenesin by a post-generation or after-production that is to say by degrees part after part and this is more properly called a Generation then the
observed But these five Recesses are most distinguishable in a Hinde and a Doe appearing like so many several ports or orifices of the Uterus tyed up and sealed fast which you may justly esteem as so many Barracadoes opposed to the admission of any thing whatsoever So carefull doth Nature seem to have been that in case any insolent intruder should have forced the first gate yet his rudeness should be foiled by the next making like provision in the other Avenues that so nothing might infinuate it self into the womb And yet for all this a Probe being put in from the Cavity of the Uterus outwards doth with ease pass through all these ports and finde a way out For it was convenient that a passage should be afforded to the discharge of Flatulencies Menstruous Blood and other Humours but all entrance debarred to the entertainment of outward things though they be never so litle as to the air itself or the Seed This Uterine Orifice is alike blocked up in all other Animals as it is in Women whose womb we have known so closed sometimes that their Courses Purgations after delivery and other humours have for want of free disburdening excited most terrible Hysterical affections insomuch that I have been fain to invent an instrument proper to this inconvenience whereby the orifice of the womb being opened the imprisoned superfluities might be released and the recited casualties subdued as also that injections might finde a reception in the cavity of the womb by which I have sometimes cured the internal Ulcers of the Matrix and also Barrenness it self The Cavity of the Uterus in Hindes and Does is exceeding small as the substance of the Uterus is very litle both in magnitude and thickness For the womb in those creatures is only as a Porch or Fore-Gate in the Cavity whereof lyeth an open way both on the right and left hand which leadeth to the Horns of the Womb. For those parts are different in almost all other Animals which have Blood from what they are in Women in whom the chief part of the womb is the Body thereof but the Neck and the Hornes as being onely Appendixes are scarce discernable For the Neck is short the Horns litle like round long processes extended upwards from the bottom of the womb like two Trumpets the Anatomists commonly conceiving them to be the Ejaculatory vessels But in the Hinde and Doe as in all other Viviparous Animals which have blood except only Women she-Apes and those Female Animals that are whole-hoofed the chief part for Generation is not the Womb but the Horns thereof For in Women and whole-hoofed Beasts the place of Conception is the Womb but in other Animals the Conception is accomplished in the Horns of the Womb. And therefore Authors generally call those Horns by the name of Uterus the Womb saying that the Womb in some Animals is bipartite and in some not understanding thereby the places of Conception which are the Horns of the wombe wherein almost all Viviparous Animals praesertine multipara especially those that bring forth several young ones at a birth doe conceive and unto which also all the Uterine veins arteries are conducted and the other Genital parts are subservient Wherefore give us leave also in the History of those Animals to use promiscuously the name of Uterus or Womb and of Horns of the womb for the same thing In a Woman as we have said the two Trumpets neer the process of the Neck of the womb which are perforated into the cavity thereof are not commonly reputed proportionable to the Horns but are conceited by some Anatomists to be Vasa Spermatica Spermatical Vessels by others Spiramenta Uteri the Pores of the Uterus by a third sort Vasa semen deferentia aut reservantia Leading Vessels or Vessels reserving the Seed in them As if they were a certain kinde of Seminal vesicles when in truth they are answerable in proportion to the Horns of the womb of other Animals as appears clearly by their scituation connexion largeness perforation form and function for as other Animals do alwaies conceive in the Horns so a Woman also is sometimes found to bear her Foetus in Cornu sive Tubâ in the Horn or Trumpet of the womb as the most learned Riolanus reports by the observation of other men and I have seen with my own eyes Those Horns do terminate in the Common Cavity which like a Porch or Threshold is seated before them both and is in Deer proportionable to the Womans uterus as the trumpets of the Womans womb are proportionable to the Horns of the Deers womb But their denomination they assume from their figure for as the Horns of a Ram or Goat are large at bottom jutting out before and again reflected backward so also these Horns of the womb in Hindes and Does at their original are large and ample and lessening by degrees as they look upwards are at last retorted towards the Spine of the Back And as those other Horns are inequal knotty and wrinkled in their forepart but behinde appear smooth and even so the Horns of the Deers womb are below wrinckled and gathered by reason of certain cells or rings bunching out in manner like the Gut Colon but above where they respect the Spine they are smooth and even and recurved as if they were tyed back by a kinde of fillet-like ligament and so by degrees grow slender as Horns do If you take an empty gut such a one as puddings are made in keeping it contract wrinckled and streightned by a tape or fillet which binds it all along on one side you shall see it curled and distinguished into litle cells or windings after the fashion of the Colick Gut And such is the fabrick of the Horns of the womb of a Hinde or a Doe In other Females the case is different for they either have larger cells or none at all And in these Horns of Hinds and Does also though there be several cells or windings yet are not all of equal magnitude but the first is much larger then any of the rest and in it chiefly the Conception is contained And as in a Woman the womb and its trumpets or Horns with the rest of its appurtenances are tyed fast to the Share-bones the Back the neighbour Parts by the mediation of a broad and carnous Membrane as by a pendulous band or tye which Anatomists do stile Vespertilionum alas the Batts wings because the Uterus hanging in this manner doth resemble a Bat with its wings spread abroad so also in Hindes and Does the two Horns of the womb together with the Testicles and all the Vessels of the Uterus are by a thick membrane fastened to the circumjacent Parts but especially to the Back which membrane performs the same office to the Uterine Parts as the Meseutery doth to the Guts and that which we call the Mesometrion doth to the Uterus of the Hen. For as by the
their own being much purer then that humour wherein the Conception swims afterwards in the midst whereof the sanguineous fibers the Punctum saliens which is the first foundation of the future foetus without the presence of any thing else are clearly discerned and this is the first Genital particle Which being constituted not onely the Vegetative soul but the Motive also is said to be in it from which all the other parts of the foetus are each in their order generated formed disposed and endowed with life after the same manner as we have declared the Chicken to be constituted out of the Colliquamentum of the Egg. Both these humors are in the Conceptions of all Viviparous Animals which many men conceive to be the Excrements of the Foetus deeming the one to be its urine the other its sweat when notwithstanding they have no offensive taste at all and are alwayes most manifest in the Conception even before any particle of the foetus is discerned The Outward coat which embraceth both the humours is called Chorion the Inward Amnium And more then these two you can never finde the former involving the whole Conception and extended over both the Horns of the uterus the later swimming in the first water and contained onely in one of the Horns except there be a Twin-foetus in which case there is one in each of the Horns as in the Gemellifical Egge there are two Colliquamentums So that where there is a double foetus they are both contained in one and the same conception together with their two-fold crystalline waters as in one and the same Egg. If you make an incision into any part of the Exteriour membrane the more impure water will presently issue out from both the Horns but the crystalline water which is comprehended in the interiour membrane called Amnion doth not flow forth with the former unless you have peirced it also The Vein which is first seen within the Amnion in the crystalline humour takes its original from the Punctum saliens exercising the office and partaking of the nature of the Umbilical Vessels and being by degrees enlarged it is disseminated into other ramifications which are scattered into the Colliquamentum whereby it is most evident that the nutriment is at first attracted from the Colliquamentum only wherein the Foetus swims Having dissected the uterus I have exposed this Punctum saliens while it yet continued its palpitation to the view of our late dread Soveraigne which was then so small that without the advantage of the Sun-beams obliquely illustrating it he could not have perceived its shivering motion The entire Colliquamentum being cast into a silver or tinn-Bason which is full of clear warm water doth very neatly lay open the Punctum saliens to the eye To which in the following dayes a certain gelly like a litle worm in the form of a Magot is adjoined as being the first platform of the future body divided into two parts of one part whereof the Trunk is constituted the Head of the other in the very same manner as hath been formerly delivered in the History of the Hen-egg The Spine of the Back is a litle inflected in manner of a Keel the Head is imperfectly composed of three small vesicles or litle balls and swimming in the Crystalline water doth dayly enlarge and grow into shape With this difference onely that the Eyes are much larger and more visible in Oviparous then in Viviparous productions After the six and twentieth day of November the foetus is discerned having his whole body almost compleat being found without distinction sometimes seated in the Right and sometimes in the Left horn of the Vterus but where there is a Twin-foetus there is one of them placed in each of the Horns And at this time the Male is distinguishable from the Female by his Genital parts which are conspicuous in a humane Embryo so soon as ever the rough Artery doth appear You shall finde the Male and Female sometimes in the Right and sometimes in the Left horn meerly as it falleth out But yet the Male is more frequently discovered in the Left and the Female in the Right horn and this frequently in Does which have Twins within them and I once also observed it in an Ewe Whence I am confirmed that the proper constitution or peculiar virtue of either side doth signifie nothing to the discrimination of the Sex Nor is the uterus the Fabricatour or former of the Foetus no nor the mother her self any more then the Hen is the framer of the Chicken in the Egge whereon she sitteth But as the Chicken is made in the Egge by an internal formative Agent so likewise is the foetus constituted out of this Egge of the Doe A man would admire to see the Foetus formed and compleated in the Amnion in so small a time after the first rise and beginning of the Blood and Punctum saliens For about the nineteenth or twentieth day of November that Point makes his first appearance about the one and twentieth or two and twentieth day the litle unshapen Worme or Maggot discovers it self but within six or seven daies after that the Foetus is so compleat that you may distinguish the Male from the Female by the Genital parts and perceive the feet formed and the little hoofes cleft being then like Gelly something inclining to yellow So soon as ever the foetus begins to be formed and grow the substance of the Uterus is much extenuated contrary to the custom of it in Women whose Womb according to the increase of the Foetus becomes thicker and more fleshy For in Hinds and Does how much the more the foetus augmenteth so much the Hornes of the Uterus approach neerer to the shape of the Guts and chiefly that Horne wherein the Foetus doth reside doth resemble a little wallet though in its extent and capacity it exceed the other This Egge or Conception doth as yet on no side adhere or grow fast to the Matrix though the foetus is now compleat but may bee very easily drawn away whole as I have tried it in an Ewe which bore a foetus in her Womb almost the length of my Thumb Wherefore it is most apparent that the foetus is yet onely nourished by the White which is shut up with it in the Conception as it hath been observed in the Hen-egge before for the Orifices of the Umbilical Vessels are quite obliterated between the White of the Conception and the adjacent humours with their membranes not being any where as yet fastned to the Uterus it self though those Veins or Vessels onely are the convoy to administer nourishment to the foetus And as in an Egge the propagations of the Veins are first disseminated into the Colliquamentum as the roots of plants are into the ground and are afterwards communicated to the exteriour Membrane called the Chorion and do dispatch their branches up and down with innumerable divarications through
of Arteries In the Womans After-burden if you mind it well presently after she is delivered are many more Arteries then Veines and also larger too which are disseminated with almost innumerable propagations up and down even to its utmost superficies As also in the fungous Parenchyma or Affusion of the Spleen which is not unlike it the number of the Arteries exceedeth that of the Veins The exteriour Vterine vessels do as I say tend towards the Matrix and towards the Testicles which are seated in the suspensory ligament as some men imagine In the Gibbous or convex part of the caruncles which respect the Matrix I have observed a wonderful contrivance in Nature For in diverse of the Cavities and Cotyledones or Orifices of the vessels gaping outwards I found a white mucilaginous substance which did fill up the whole body of the caruncle as the Honey stuffs up the Honey-comb and was of a complexion consistence and tast much like the White of an Egge But if you pluck a sunder the conception from the caruncles you shall presently descry so many spriggs or capillary branches of the Vmbilical vessels which look like long threads or filaments to be drawn out also from every one of the Cotyledones and Combs as it were and out of their mucous substance just as Herbs plucked up from the Earth have their Roots trailing after them By which it is evident that the Extremities of the Vmbilical vessels are no way conjoined to the Vterine vessels by an Anastomôsis nor do extract blood from them but are terminated in that white mucilaginous matter and are quite obliterated in it attracting nourishment from it after the self same manner as they did formerly draw Aliment from the white moisture or sap which was concluded within the membranes of the conception And as the chicken in the Hen-egge is susteined by the White attracted by its Vmbilical vessels so the Conception also of Hinds and Does is nourished with a white substance like to that which is stored up in these litle Cells and not with blood Wherefore these Caruncles may be justly stiled the Vterine cakes or dugs that is to say Convenient and proportionate Organs or Instruments designed for the concocting of that Albuginous Aliment and for preparing it for the attraction of the Veins And therefore those Viviparous Animals which have not these Caruncles or After-birth as the Mare and the Sow have none their foetus is susteined even till the hour of their birth with the humours which are conteined in the Conception onely and their conception doth no where adhere or grow to the Vterus It is therefore manifest in those and also in these sorts or species of Viviparous Animals and perhaps in all other whatsoever that the Embryo is in no other manner susteined in the Vterus then the chicken in the Egge but out of the same Nutritive substance and of like kind to the Aliment in the White of an Egge For as in an Egge the extremities of the Vmbilical vessels are terminated in the White and Yolk so likewise in Hinds and Does and other Animals that are furnished with these Caruncles the extremity of the Orifices of the Vmbilical vessels are opened into terminated in the humour which is conteined in the Conception and in that white substance which is found in those Orifices or Cotyledones And this truth is hence also asserted in that the extremities of the threads or filaments of the Vmbilical vessels when they are drawn out of that mucous or white substance are all of them white likewise which is a forcible argument they do onely imbibe this gelly or mucilage and not blood And any man may prove the same Experiment in an Egge also if he desire it The After-burden or Vterine cake of a Woman is in its gibbous part wherewith it respects the Womb uneven hilly by reason of several tumors or mushroom-like substances and seems by their mediation to grow to the Womb. As if it were not fastned to the womb in every part but onely in those places where the vessels disseminated into it do extract Aliment and in which for that cause the extremities of the vessels are broken off Now whether those extremities or terminations of the vessels do suck blood from the Womb or rather some kind of concocted substance like to the White of an Egge such as we perceive plainly in Hinds and Does I am not yet satisfied Lastly that the truth in hand may be certainly confirmed if you squeeze those caruncles between your fingers you may easily Milk as much of that Nutritive juice as a spoon can contein out of any one of those Caruncles as out of a Nipple without any appearance of blood at all which blood you shall never squeez from them though you force them never so much Moreover the caruncle thus milked drained doth contract it self and flag like to a sponge that is squeezed and appears to be bored through with several perforations So that by all signs and tokens it appears that those Caruncles are Ubera Vterina the Breasts or Vdders of the Uterus or the receptacles and store-houses of that Nutritive white substance At the end of December these Caruncles do less firmly cleave to the Vterus then they did before and are with case divided from it And by how much the foetus doth improve and grow neerer to the birth so much the easier do those caruncles disjoin from the Womb and in the end as ripe fruit falls off from the Tree they depart from the Vterus of their own accord as being things which relate to the conception And when they are parted from the Womb you may in the impressions which they leave behind them perceive the points or terminations of the Arteries which pass on towards them breathing forth blood But if you force the conception from the caruncles no blood doth issue out from the impressions which they leave behind them though it do seem more consonant to reason that blood should issue out of the caruncles then of the conception upon their divorce For since the caruncles are embroidered by several propagations of Arteries derived from the Vterus and are commonly conceived to convey blood for the nutriment of the Foetus they ought in consequence to abound with plenty of Blood And yet though you milk or compress them they effund no blood at all because they are not ful of blood but of this white substance nor do they seem to be instruments instituted for the concoction of the former but Promptuaries or Treasuries of the latter By which it is apparent that the foetus in the Womb is not susteined by the Mothers blood but by this white substance fitly prepared And perhaps even grown bodies are not nourished by blood but something which runs in the blood is their common and last Aliment as shall perhaps be elsewhere discovered in our Physiological Treatise and in the proper disceptation relating to the blood I
do much question the truth of that place of Hippocrates where he saith Those Animals whose Acetabula or Orifices of their Vterine vessels are full of a mucous substance do suffer Abortment For that substance is not an Excrement and cause of Abortion but an Aliment and first cause of life But Hippocrates perhaps meant some other Acetabula for in a Woman they are not found nor hath her After-birth any such substance as this to be sensibly perceived in any of its cavities The Later Physitians according to the opinion of the Arabians do phansie three several Nutritive Humours namely Rorem the dewy substance Gluten the glutinous substance and Cambium the substance which is immediately transformed into the essence of the parts and these Fernelius calls succos Nutritios the alible juices as conceiving that the Parts of our bodies are not immediatly nourished by the Blood as its last aliment but by these secundary humours by the first whereof as by a kind of Dew all the smallest particles of the body and parts thereof are sprinckled and bedewed which humour being thickned by a farther concoction and sticking more firmly to the Parts is now called Gluten which at last being altered and assimilated by the power and virtue of the Parts is called Cambium We may according to these Mens conceit call that substance which we finde in the Acetabula or Orifices of the vessels the Gluten or Nutritive white and say that it is as being the last Aliment which is designed to all the several parts of the foetus proportionable to the White or Yolk of the Egge For as we said ere-while with Aristotle that the Yolk is proportionable to milk so we likewise conceive it consonant to reason to affirm that this substance which is contained in the Cotyledones or Acetabula of the Uterine cake doth supply the office of milk to the foetus so long as it continues in the womb and consequently that the Caruncles are as it were Ubera interna internal Dugs and that the alible juice is after the delivery transported into the Breasts and there made milk that so the foetus may enjoy the same nutriment after he is born wherewith he was fed when he continued in the womb And therefore this onely difference is between the party-coloured Eggs of Oviparous Animals which are compounded of the Yolk and White and the Eggs or Conceptions of Viviparous Animals that in the former the Yolk which is their secundary sustenance is provided for them within the Egg and presently upon their Exclusion is shut up within the belly of the Chicken as being reserved there for their support but in the latter this nutritive substance is before the Birth preserved in the Acetabula and after the Birth transmitted to the Breasts or Udder So that the Pullus is supplied with a kinde of milke which is concluded in it self but the Viviparous foetus sucks the same from the duggs of the Dam. When December is ended seeing that in the subsequent moneths of January February c. there is nothing new or notable doth befall the foetus but all its accessions have been observed already save onely the Hair Teeth Horns and the like only the parts formerly described seem to have attained a larger Augmentation litle or nothing respecting the business of Generation we conceive it useless to discourse any more of them at present But as to the Conceptions of Ewes I have dissected divers of them about this time which like those of Does did also resemble the figure of a Wallet or double-pudding being extended over both the Horns of the Womb. In some of these Conceptions I found two foetus in other one only and that void of all kinde of wool with its eyes so congealed and fixed together that I could not open the lids and yet the hoofs were already made Where there were two foetus they lay in several Horns of the Uterus and that promiscuously without any order at all observed the male being sometimes in the left and the female in the right Horn and sometimes clean contrary but both were still encompassed in the same common Conception and concluded in the same exteriour membrane called Chorion whose Extremities or ends on both Sides towards the termination of the Horns were stained as it were by a kinde of cholerical excrement and did seem to have some turbid and excrementitious matter within them The Caruncles or litle Cakes were diverse and of a different magnitude and of a distinct figure from the caruncles of Hinds and Does for in Ewes there is a kind of round mushroom with the stalk broken off contained between the Coats of the Uterus whose gibbous Part lieth towards the Uterus as it is also in the Conceptions of Cowes but the concave which is smooth towards the foetus and likewise larger Branches or Vessels are derived to this concave part as it also happens to the interiour part of a Womans After-burden The Propagations of the Umbilical Vessels being annexed to the caruncles do grow so firmly to them that when I endeavoured to divide them the gibbous part would be sooner broken off from the interiour coat of the Womb then recede from the Conception contrary to their custom in Hinds and Does whose membrane called Chorion is easily separated from the Cotylidones of the caruncles and the convexe side of the caruncles which adhereth to the Conception may be divided from it but the Concave part or root rather or stalk sticketh fast to the Uterus But in other matters the office is alike in all and they have the like Acetabula and an Albugineous gelly may in like manner be milked out of them as out of these caruncles of Cowes also Where there is but one single foetus in a Conception there that foetus doth transmit his Umbilical Vessels to all the caruncles of both the Horns of the womb that so he may derive nutriment from both But that Horn wherein the foetus himself swimming in the crystal water which lies within the coat called Amnion doth reside is larger then the other But where there are two foetus in one and the same Conception there each of them are confined to their proper caruncles and do transmit their Umbilical Vessels into their own proper Horn only and receive their Nutriment from thence If it be a Male foetus the Testicles are large for it's time hanging without in the Scrotum If an Ewe-lamb the Udder hanging in the same place hath litle Tets or Nipples as Womens Breasts In the twofold stomack of the foetus namely the Maw and the Dew-lap there appeared a crystal water like to that where he swam for they did agree both in colour sent taste and consistence there was also in the upper Guts a substance like to chyle in the lower a green excrement and dry dung such as they use to eject when they graze the Liver was something large and the Bladder of Gall of an oblong figure and in
sleepy that nothing could recover her I being called in to her cure finding that Clysters and other proper remedies had been applied to no purpose and that nothing could go down her throat I put up a feather which was dipped in a strong Sneezing medicine into her Nose by which being moved though she was so overwhelmed with a deep stupidity that she could neither sneeze nor be awaked she began to be seized by a kind of general Convulsion all her body over which beginning at the shoulders did by degrees extend it self to the lower parts But as often as I applied this provocation to her her delivery was advanced and came on and at last the Mother being insensible of it her self and remaining still in her sleepy condition a healthy and sprightly Child was born into the world We may observe the manner of their throwes in other Animals as in the Ewe the Bitch and in great Cattel wherein we shall discover that it is not by the sole action of the Uterus or Belly either but is the joint conflict of all the whole body And how much the Foetus doth conferre to the acceleration and facilitating of his owne Birth is cheifly evident in Oviparous Creatures for it is apparent that the Foetus it self and not the Mother doth break through the shell By which it is probable that in Viviparous births also the chiefest cause of being born is owed to the Foetus it self and that to his industry and indeavour and not to his weight as Fabricius conceiveth For what doth the weight thereof conduce to the birth in four-footed beasts which stand upright or sit down or in Women which lye along nor doth the endeavour of the foetus proceed as he supposeth from its largeness of bulk or the plenty of the water the Water indeed is the cause of the delivery of the foetus which is dead and putrified in the womb in that by its corruption and acrimony it doth extimulate the Uterus to relieve it self but the foetus himself sets open the Gates of the Womb with his head turned downward and unlocks their inclosure by his own force and so struggleth himself into the world by conquest And therefore that kind of birth is counted the nimbler and more fortunate But when the Child comes into the world thrusting his feet formost saith Pliny the birth is counted unnatural and those that are so born are called Agrippae quasi aegre parti born with much difficulty For their birth is slow and painful And yet notwithstanding in abortment and where the foetus is dead or that there would be a hard delivery any other way so that there is necessity of handy-work in the business the more convenient way of comming forth is with the feet formost for by that means the streights of the Uterus are opened as it were by a Wedge Wherefore when the hope of delivery relieth chiefly upon the foetus as being strong and lively we must endeavour to further his comming out with his head fore-most but in case the task is like to depend upon the Uterus we must procure his comming out with his feet fore-most That the assistance of the foetus is chiefly required in the birth is evident not in Birds onely which do by their own industry without the help of their Parent break up the shell but also in other Animals for all Flies and Butterflies doe perforate the litle membranes in which they did lurk when they were the Worme Aurelia and likewise the Silk-worm doth at his appointed time mollifie and erode the litle Silken bagge which he had weaved for his defence and security and so gets out without any forraign aide And in like manner Wasps Beetles and other Insects and all Fishes are borne without others helps as doth chiefly appear in the Raie the Fork-fish the Lamprey and all cartilagineous Fishes which do conceive their Egges within themselves and those perfect ones and party-coloured being furnished with a Yolk and White and concluded in a strong cartilagineous quadrangular shell out of which being detained within the Belly and the Uterus they do form their young which breaking open the shell by force do get abroad as also the young Vipers by their erosion of the membrane which conteineth the Egge do sometimes in their Mothers Bowels and sometimes as they stick in the very passage and other times at the end of two or three daies after their nativity expose themselves to the wide World From whence that Fable that the Vipers do eat their way through their Mothers bowels and so revenge the death of their Father took its foundation When yet they do no more then all other issues which come into the world breaking through the membranes which encompass them either in their very Birth it self or a litle after it But how great furtherance the foetus doth conferre to its own Birth several observations doe clearly evince A certain Woman here amongst us I speak it knowingly was being dead over night left alone in her Chamber but the next morning an Infant was there found between her Leggs which had by his own force wrought his release Gregorius Nymmanus hath collected certaine examples of this nature out of approved Authors I also knew a Woman who had all the interiour part of the neck of her Womb excoriated and torne by a difficult and painful delivery so that her time of Lying in being over though she proved with Child againe afterward yet not onely the sides of the Orifice of the Neck of the Womb neer the Nymphae did close together but all the whole Cavity thereof even to the inner Orifice of the Matrix whereby there was no entrance even for a small probe nor yet any egress to her usual fluxes Hereupon the time of her delivery being now arrived the poor soul was lamentably tortured and laying aside all expectation of being delivered she resigned up her keys to her Husband and setting her affairs in order she took leave of all her friends When behold beyond expectation by the strong contest of a very lusty Infant the whole tract was forced open and she was miraculously delivered the lusty Child proving the author of his own and his Parents life leaving the passage open for the rest of his Brethren who should be borne in time to come For proper applications being administered his Mother was restored to her former health I shall adde one example more memorable then this The Queen had an exceeding white Mare excellently shaped presented unto her whose genitall parts lest by going to Horse shee might endanger the beauty of her proportions and become unfit for use were as the custome is locked up all with iron rings Notwithstanding which this Mare by what accident I cannot tell nor could the Groomes inform me was made big with Foale and at last when they feared no such matter she foaled by night and the Foale was found alive next morning by the mares side
When I came to heare thereof I went presently to the Stables and saw both the labia of the lap which were locked up with rings and all the privity towards the left side so torne and dilacerated from the right haunch-bone that the unity of that most tight part being dissolved by the incredible force of the young Foale hee might easily finde a passage through that wide gap So forcible is the vigour and efficacy of a mature and liuely Foetus But on the contrary in case the Foetus be sickly and languishing or borne before its time it is not properly a birth but an abortment and the Foetus is rather ejected then borne and therefore though he be now some dayes old he will neither take the breast kindly nor deposite his excrements as he ought to doe And yet the Uterus hath its share in this business of Delivery as shall appear in the following example A poor woman who was a Laundress did for a long time labour under the Bearing down or precipitation of her wombe and the sheath thereof did hang down to the bigness of ones fist and at length using no applications to it her grief grew so forcible upon her that it now begun to resemble a Scrotum the skin being rugged and squalid and yet found now less paine or trouble in it then she was formerly used to find when it newly bore down But she asking my advice I counselled her to keep her Bed for some certain dayes and to mollifie the dryer parts thereof with fomentations and oyntments and so when her wombe was reduced into her body to keep it still up with pessaries and swathes till by the use of drying and strengthening remedies it was confirmed and setled in its proper place The cure did for some time succeed to our wish but she being poor was fain to fall to her calling again to get money and so intermitting her appointed applications she fell into a relapse and endured it pretty well her womb sometimes retiring back again and sometimes continuing quite out but for the most part at night she did reduce it and there it remained for some time But after many dayes she addressed her self to me again complaining that her wombe being swelled by the use of her remedies and especially of her fomentations as she conceived would now no longer abide in her body And yet applying some oyntments which I had prescribed she had forced it in againe but her cure did not continue long for no sooner did she rise and stand upon her leggs and so goe about her work but her wombe did presently by reason of its bulke and weight disturbe her againe and would easily beare downe upon any occasion And now at this time it was as large as a Bulls Cod dangling between her leggs so that I suspected that not onely the sheath but that the womb it selfe was now inverted or else that shee was diseased with a Uterine Hernia or rupture It grew at last bigger then a mans head being then a hard tumour and hanging downe to her knees did much pain her so that she could not goe but upon all foure and breaking just in the bottom of it it did effund a moisture as if it had been an Ulcer and blood with it Looking upon it for I did not explore it by touch I did suspect it to be a Cancer of the wombe and therefore did bethink my selfe of a Ligature and cutting it off and in the interim I advised her to apply gentle fomentations to it to asswage the paine But the following night an Infant perfectly shaped of a span long was cast out of that Tumour but it was dead and the next morning they brought it to me which having embowelled I kept swimming in cold water without corrupting for some moneths time shewing it to many of my friends as a miraculous spectacle The skin in this Foetus was not yet formed but only a thin paring appeared such as lieth about a Codlin which I easily drew away whole and entire whereupon all the muscles disclosed themselves very distinctly for the Foetus was leane What other matters I observed in the dissection of this Foetus shall be related elsewhere in this place I thought it onely convenient to signifie how the Matrix it self alone did promote this Abortive and did eject this Foetus by its owne industry Fabricius doth propose two things worthy admiration as he saith in the birth and after it the first is concerning the dilatation of the Uterus in the Birth and the other is of the reduction of the Uterus after the Birth into its former compass and narrowness Wondering that the womb should be so much distended to make way for the foetus and that in a short time after delivery it should retire into its pristine dimension How the Neck of the Womb which is thick hard and so shut up that it will not admit a slender probe should subscribe to so vast a distention in the time of Delivery We may with Galen admire saith he but we shall never comprehend it Yet he gives this Reason for it namely That the Uterus while it is not pregnant is a thick and hard body so likewise is its orifice but being impregnated it becomes soft and thin and the nearer it drawes to delivery so much the more is the substance and by consequence its orifice too made thinner and softer And this he conceiveth to be effected by its distention which being distended its compact and complicated body if he may so speak is expanded and smoothed and so though it was thick and hard before yet now it is rendred thin and soft and so consequently fit to afford an exit to the foetus And afterwards he saith There was one who once enquired of me how if it be so indeed it can be true that in women with childe the orifice of the womb is so occluded that not so much as a small probe can get into it I make answer that it came to be so in that the womb while it is distended and is unfolded like a linnen cloth that is compacted and folded up together doth begin to be raised up first in its upper part and there to be unfolded and after it the lower parts do by degrees begin to distend till at the last that distending faculty doth arrive at the very orifice of the womb it self which is convenient to be so then when the Uterus is inclining towards delivery Wherefore the Orifice of the womb is deservedly shut for the first months whilest it is crass and obdurate but in the last dilated And thus much touching Galens unknown cause we might also adde other Reasons whereby the dilatation of the womb becometh more easie as suppose the Excrements of the Foetus namely the Sweat and the Urine which though they are contained in their own proper membranes and receptacles yet may the power of Humectation arrive even unto this Orifice especially since it
For this I am sure that the Chorion is from the first beginning full of water But I do not here intend to dispute controversies I shall rather rehearse what I have found by experience It is one thing to exhibit the fabrick of a Conception or Embryo that is now perfected as Fabricius doth but another thing to disclose the the generation thereof and first scheme and rudiments of all as it is a diverse business to describe Apples or the ripe seeds of Plants and their first production from the bud We therefore will briefly relate how the Conception is framed by litle and litle even from the beginning to the end that it may thence more likely appear what we are to conclude concerning the Membranes and other Appurtenances relating to the Foetus All Living things do derive their Original as we have said from something which doth contain in it both the matter and efficient virtue and power which therefore is that thing both out of which and by which whatsoever is born doth deduce its beginning And such an Original or Rudiment in Animals whether they proceed from other Animals which do beget them or else are spontaneous and the Issues of Putrefaction is a certain humour which is concluded in some certain coat or shell namely a similar body having life actually in it or in potentiâ and this in case it be generated within an Animal and do there remain untill it have produced an Vnivocal Animal is commonly called a Conception but if it be exposed without by being born or else assume its beginning elsewhere it is called either an Egg or a Worm But I conceive that both ought alike to be called Primordium the first Rudiment from which an Animal doth spring as Plants assume their nativity from the Seed and all these Primordia are of one kinde namely Vital And this kinde of Rudiment I finde in the Vterus of all Viviparous Animals before any part of the foetus appear namely there is a cleare stiffe white humour like the white of an Egge which is included in a membrane which I call their egge and this doth fill up all the Vterus and both the Horns thereof in Hindes Does Sheep and other Beasts which cleave the Hoof. In process of Time there is a most pure and clear watry part distinguished or severed from the rest of the Rudiment or egge which we call the Colliquamentum or dissolved part in a Hen-egge and this doth in brightness or perspicuity farre exceed all the rest of the egge in which it is comprehended The form thereof is round and it is concluded in its own proper membrane which is most thin and transparent which they call Amnion as for the rest of the humor which is thicker and darker then this an exteriour coat which is contiguous to the concave superficies of the Vterus and embraceth the whole Egge doth contain it which obtaineth a several figure according to the diversity of the shape of the womb for in some it is oval in other oblong but in Beasts which cleave the hoof it resembleth a Wallet A litle while after there doth appear in this crystal Colliquamentum Punctum rubrum saliens A Red leaping Point from which most slender strings of litle Veines are disseminated like rayes or beames Anon the first concrement or substance of the Body doth appear like a Magot which is bent like a Keel of a Ship and so the rest of the Parts doe follow in their order as hath been related in our History For we have observed that the Procreation of the foetus in Viviparous Animals is instituted in the same manner out of the Egg or Conception as the Chicken out of the Henn-Egg But these Viviparous conceptions do as I have noted differ in Figure Number and Connexion to the Vterus For at the beginning the Conception especially in those that cleave the hoofe doth not grow to the Vterus but being onely contiguous thereunto doth fill up all its cavity and distend it and may be easily drawn out whole In such Creatures as cleave the hoofe which do conceive in the Horns of the Womb and also in those that are whole-hoofed there is onely one of these eggs found at a time and that also extending it selfe to both the Hornes and though sometimes they do produce a single and sometimes a double foetus and thereupon have sometimes one single Colliquamentum and sometimes two namely one in the Right and another in the Left Horn yet are they still concluded in that Common Egg or Conception But in other Animals so many foetus so many several Eggs are to be seen apart and as many Colliquamentums in them as it is in the Dog the Cat the Mouse and such like Animals as have teeth in both their Jawes The Figure of the Conception in such as cleave the hoof is like a Wallet namely such as Fabricius doth attribute to the Allantoides In a Mare the internal shape of the womb resembleth a litle oblong Sack but in a Woman it is Orbicular In those Animals whose conception doth cleave to their womb which truly is not so in many untill the foetus be fully formed it is distinguished by its Diversity of Connexion for in some it doth stick onely in one place by the mediation of a carnous substance which we call Placenta the Uterine cake in women because it resembleth the round figure of a Cake but in others it groweth to the Uterus in several places being fastened thereunto by divers fleshy substances or caruncles namely by five in Hindes and Does by more in Cowes but they are lesser also but in the race of Sheep by very many and those of different magnitude In Dogs and Cats these Carnous Bodies do like a girdle encompass every conception round A like substance doth in Hares and Moles grow to the sides of their Uterus as also the Uterine cake in a woman which embraceth more then one half of the conception as the cups do the Acorns when they first spring and therefore the gibbous part thereof doth stick fast to the womb but the hollow part doth grow to the Chorion These things being premised we shall now disclose what our judgement is of these Humours membranes fleshy substance and also of the distribution of the Vmbilical vessels which are spoken of by Fabricius Fabricius doth rightly understand by the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Secundines or After-Burden namely not the Membranes onely but all that which doth come away last in the delivery or at lest not long after it and is constituted of humours membranes and fleshy substance as also of the Vmbilical Vessels But as for what he relateth concerning the humours which as he supposeth he doth receive from the Ancients as a thing most sure and which standeth in no need of any proof namely that the water in the Amnion wherein the foetus swimmes is its sweat and that
that outward Water in the Chorion is the Vrine are both incongruous and false assertions For both those two humours do appear in the conception before any portion of the foetus it self be in being and that which he calleth the Urine is before that which they conceive to be the sweat Nay you may find these humours especially the last in some barren and unfruitful conceptions wherein there is no tract of a foetus at all Such Conceptions as these or Subventaneous eggs Women do sometimes eject and Aristotle saith thy are called Fluxus Emanations or Fluxes but we call them false conceptions and slips Such an egge as these did Hippocrates shake from his aborting Minstrel For those creatures which do breed an Animal within themselves have in some sort after their first conception something like an egge within them for a humour is conteined in a thin membrane just as if you should pluck the shell off of the egge But as for that humour conteined in the Chorion which Fabricius and other Physitians conceive to be the Urine Aristotle seemeth to apprehend it to be the liquour of the Sperme or Geniture For he saith The seed being received by the Uterus having continued in it a while is covered with a membrane For if it chance to fall out before any dearticulation or delineation of the parts do appear it looketh like an egge covered with a membrane when the shell is pilled off But that membrane is full of Veins namely the Chorion which hath assumed its denomination a venarum choro sive copia from the conflux or multitude of veins I have often seen those kind of egges ejected in the second or third moneth they are many times corrupt and rotten within and do steale out insensibly like the Whites and so delude those who have entertained hopes of a true conception Again those fore-mentioned humours cannot be conceived to be sweat or Urine because they abound in such plenty at the very beginning that the Embryo swimming in the middest thereof is thereby secured whilest his Mother runneth or danceth or doth imply her body by any forcible agitation from the collision of the circumjacent parts as it were by a fortress Add to all this that many Animals never sweat at all when yet according to Aristotle all Water Land and Volatile Animals and I shall put in creeping things and Insects also whether they be produced in the shape of an egge or an Animal or else be spontaneous productions are all procreated after a like manner all fowl creeping things and fishes are conceived neither to Sweat nor Urine The Dog and Cat do never sweat nor any other Animal while it doth emit abundance of Urine And certainly it is impossible that any Animal should make water before the Reines and Bladder are made Besides which is a more evincing Argument then the rest these humours cannot be excrementitious because so many litle filaments of Veins are disseminated into them which doe derive Aliment from thence as from a large stock and afterwards conduct it unto the foetus Againe if the humour conteined in the Chorion be the Urine what need is there of the Allantoides and if the humour conteined in the Amnion be the Sweat why did nature who is so exact in all her contrivances order the matter so ill as to condemn the foetus to lye wallowing in its own Excrement and why doth the Parent presently after delivery for that is usual with several creatures devour that which is but the Excrement of her foetus together with the membranes which contein it with so much greediness and appetite Some have observed that if the Animal do not eat up these membranes and humours it will not give down its Milk freely If notwithstanding all these arguments some men will still maintain that these humours which we dispose to the nutriment of the foetus are excrementitious and that upon this inducement viz. because they also improve according to the growth of the foetus and that in the birth of some Animals at which time the whole stock of Aliment is in probability almost consumed great store of these humours doth abound and that therefore they must needs performe other offices then can well consist with the dignity of the nutriment Yet for all this I confidently pronounce that these humours are the Aliment of the foetus from the beginning of all as the Colliquamentum and the White do serve the Chicken for the same purpose but in process of time the thinner and purer parts being exhausted the reliques do then put on the nature of an useful excrement and are reserved in some Animals that so they may secure the foetus and facilitate the delivery For as Wine when the Spirits are exhaled turnes into dead-wine and as several Excrements do result from the reliques of the Aliment so in like manner when all that substance which is commodious to the sustenance of the foetus is derived out of the humour concluded in the Chorion the remainder doth turn into a kind of excrement and is reserved for the uses aforesaid But all that humour which was included in the Amnion it commonly spent neer the approaching delivery so that it is probable that the foetus desireth to get out by reason his provisions faile him Lastly if at any time there be any other humour conteined in the Allantoides as indeed there sometimes is I esteem it to be a preter-natural humour For I have seen when women at their delivery have had a mighty flux of water and sometimes a two-fold water our Midwives call them the By-waters And therefore some women have a monstrous great belly though they are brought to bed of a very litle lean Childe but such women do effund abundance of Waters Some are of opinion that the larger quantity of Waters doth accompany weakly and those female Children but the lesser strong and male Children I have often seen waters burst forth in the midst of the going with Child without Abortion the Child remaining safe and strong even to the birth As therefore there are naturally but two Waters only whereof the one is conteined in the Chorion and the other in the Amnion so it may sometimes fall out beside the ordinary course of nature that several Waters may be accumulated in membranes proper to themselves or else in the reduplications of the Chorion As for the Membranes or Coats of the Womb since their proper use and office chiefly is to contein the Waters and those Waters appear to be two only it is most certain that the membranes themselves are not necessary and usually more then two But as for those who reckon three I conceive they were deluded because the Ancients call the self-same membrane sometimes Chorion from the conflux of Veines and sometimes Allantoides from its figure Every conception is covered over with these two membranes as also every Braine hath a double Meninx every Tree and Shrub a two-fold
Placenta of the Embryo And as the mother doth by her own food acquire more milke then she hath use for to sustain her flesh and blood which milk is reconcocted in her breasts and treasured up so also such Females as are great with young in whose womb this Placenta is do prepare and suppeditate to their foetus an aliment which is defecated by those caruncles by which it cometh to pass that an impure or laudible diet is administred to the Embryo's according as the Parents diet it self is either wholsome or impure and according to the sufficient or imperfect concoction which they afford it in those organs of the Vterus For some Embryo's have a more perfect organ provided for them such as is that carnous substance of the Uterus which is wanting in some In some likewise this Vterine cake is thicker larger and fuller of Blood but in others it is more spongy and paler like those two Sweet-breads or glandulous bodies called Thymus and Pancreas For you shall finde as much difference of these in Animals as of the Breasts or of the Bowels for to instance onely in Livers they are in some ruddy and sanguine in others as in the greatest part of Fishes and likewise Cachectical persons pale Mares do feed upon the crude grass and do not chew the cud Sowes swill themselves with any filth and both these want a Vterine cake which is the organ of compleating the Aliment And therefore true is that of Fabricius saying This fleshy substance is in several kinds of Animals different in Magnitude Figure Scite and Number Women have one onely as Mice Conies Ginny-pigs Bitches Cats and several Animals whose feet are distinguished into toes and have teeth in both jawes but all Animals which cleave the hoof and have teeth in one jaw onely whether they be domesticks as the Sheep the Cow and the Goat or wilde as the Hinde the Doe the Roe and the like have diverse Again those Animals which have but one in them it either resembleth a Cake and thence cometh its denomination as in Women Conies the Hare and the Mole Mice and Ginney-pigs or else it resembleth a zone or girdle or swath ingirting the trunck of the body as in Bitches Cats Ferrets and the like In some it is like a chalice or Acorn cup comprehending the greater part of the foetus as in the Hare and the Cony where the convexe part groweth to the Vterus and the concavous respects the foetus Likewise in those females which have but one and that resembling a Cake though the figure be alike in them all yet the scituation is unlike For in a woman it groweth to the bottom of the womb and is distant a great way that is by the length of long vessels from the foetus but in Mice Ginny-pigs and Conies it is annexed partly to the Region of the Loynes partly to the sides of the breast But those animals which have more of these carnous substances then one they are all of them furnished with teeth in one jaw onely as Sheep Cowes Hinds Roe-deer and the like and yet in these also there is a diversity For Ewes have more caruncles and those of different magnitude the biggest whereof are as large as a Nutmeg the least as a Cich-pease or Vetch which are also of a round figure and ruddy complexion and their convex parts do respect the Uterus appearing like soft Warts or Nipples But Cowes have greater flatter and paler which are of a spongy consistence like Mush-rooms and these seem to take their original from the Chorion Hindes and Does have five onely and those bred out of the womb do protuberate towards the conception and there exhibit their Cavities But being firmly fastened to the Uterus are not easily separated from it except it be when the birth is drawing nigh at which time like ripe fruits they do very easily forego their former connexion And being torn off from the womb I have observed the greater part of the Blood which flowes afterward to issue not from the Conception but from the Uterus it self Fabricius treating of the Union of this Carnous substance with the Vterus doth labour by many but weak arguments to prove that the Vmbilical vessels do join to the extremities of the vessels of the Womb by several insertions and this he doth undertake chiefly to countenance the old opinion received almost by all for he confesseth that he can deliver nothing certaine touching this matter because the Carnous substance hinders a man from discovering the truth thereof But yet neither sense nor reason do evince that there are any more Anastomoses in the Vterus then in the Liver between the branches of the Gate and Hollow-vein or in the Breasts between the veins which convey blood and those that waft the Milk There is indeed in some places a kind of contiguity or juxtaposition of those vessels and sometimes an insertion of the one into the Coat of the other but no where any such coalition or Vnion as Fabricius conceiteth For were it so the veines ought to be inserted into the Arteries for the vessels which do convey blood into the Vterus and Caruncles are Arteries but they which transport it from the Vterus to the Foetus are Veins as is apparent to all men because they waft the blood from the After-birth into the Hollow-vein Wherefore the Opinion of Arantius seems to me to be more true namly that the Orifices of the Umbilical vessels are not united to the Orifices of the Vessels of the womb For there are fewer Vessels conducting blood to the womb then veins returning it to the foetus and the greatest part of the propagations of these are terminated in the Chorion And yet Fabricius either overswayed by his respects to Antiquity or his envy to Arantius doth stubborny persist in the patronage of the old opinion As concerning the Cotelydones or Acetabula Fabricius concludeth nothing certain but only compileth the several opinions of Antiquity But we have before in the History of Hinds and Does shewed in what Animals these Acetabula are where we have withal signified that they are certain litle Cells of small capacity dispersed through the Caruncles or fleshy substance and fraught with a white or gellyish substance as the Honey-comb is full of Honey In Hinds they do fitly resemble the shape of that cavity in the Haunch-bone which receiveth the Bone of the Thigh and therefore they are by the Greeks called Cotyledones and in Latine Acetabula because they resemble those litle Vessels or Sawsers which were anciently brought to the table with Vineger for sawce These cavities do not exceed in magnitude the perforations of a large sponge and into each of them so many slender sprigs of the Umbilical Vessels do deeply insinuate themselves because in them is laid up the sustenance of the foetus and not blood as Fabricius conceived but a gelly resembling the thicker white of an egge Whereby
it appears as we have formerly declared that the foetus of such as cleave the hoof as likewise all other are not susteined by the mothers blood That which Aristotle delivereth concerning the Acetabula that they are diminished as the Foetus doth improve is contrary to experience for the larger the foetus the larger the caruncles also and their Acetabula or cavities are more capacious and more numerous and more full of an albugineous juice If you compress these caruncles no blood at all doth issue out but as water or honey doth distill out of a squeezed Sponge or Honey-comb So in like manner if you press the Acetabula an albugineous liquor doth drop out and when that liquor is pressed out the Acetabula are more contract pale and flaggy and at last do resemble the Nipples of the Breasts or large falling Warts Aristotle indeed doth truly affirm that these Acetabula are not in all Animals for they are not in Women nor in any else as far as I know who have onely one carnous substance in their Vterus But as for their office and use I conceive that all the Caruncles like Breasts do not contein blood but digest a sap like to the White of an Egge which they do administer to nourish the foetus The description of the Vmbilical Vessels is elegantly delivered by Fabricius as his Tables or Pictures of them are very artificial The Veins saith he passing from the Uterus towards the Foetus are ever united and improved nor doth their conjunction give over until two large Trunks do result out of them all which penetrating the Navel of the Infant they do constitute one onely large Trunk which is inserted into the Liver of the Infant and perforated into the Hollow and Gate-vein In like manner the Arteries adjoined to these Veins which are very numerous and small passing on from the Womb to the Foetus and at last uniting their forces together and so enlarging do conspire into two large Trunks also which after they have passed the Navel do separate themselves and break company from the Veins and sticking to the sides of the Bladder of Urine by the help of an intervening Membrane they do here and there disperse themselves into the branches of the great Artery descending into the Thighs But we must take notice that this description given by Fabricius doth agree only to the Navel of an Infant and is not common to the foetus of every Animal at large Nor yet to an Infant neither but after it is fully formed for the Arteries at the beginning are inconspicuous as being so slender that we have need of the quick sight of a Lynceus to discern them nor do they indeed reveal themselves afterwards but only by their pulsation for in other things they are no way distinguishable from Veins Because therefore as I have shewed elsewhere the slender branches or filaments of the Arteries have no pulsation at lest so far as we can discover they cannot be known from Veins for they are at that time so thin subtle that they are woven to the coats of the veins like the finest threds or rather do obscurly insinuate themselves into the tunicles of the veins whereby they are utterly indiscernable But all the veins by a retrograde production uniting their sprigs at last do all conspire into one Trunk as all the branches into one stock as also the Meseraick Veins are all concluded in the Venae Portae Neer the Embryo they are divided into two Trunks but when once they enter into him they do constitute one onely Navel which doth terminate in the Hollow-vein neer the right deaf-eare of the Heart passing through the Liver is inserted into the Gate-vein and doth scatter no more Propagations untill by a very large Orifice it displayeth it self out of the gibbous part of the liver So that if you open the Trunk of the Hollow-vein from the deaf-ear of the Heart downwards and so exhaust it of all its blood you may perceive three Orifices as conjoined together one whereof is the entrance into the descending Trunk of the Hollow vein the other is the going out of the Branch of the Liver disseminated through all its gibbous part but the third is the Original of this Umbilical vein Whereby it clearly appeareth that the original of the veins is not to be sought for in the Liver because the Orifice of the descending Trunk of the Hollow-vein is much larger then the Liver-branch for the Umbilical branch is as large as that But the Branches are never said to be the Original of their Trunk but rather where the Trunk is largest there are wee to repute the Original of the branches toreside now that happeneth at the entrance of the right ventricle of the Heart and therefore that ventricle is to be accounted the original promptuary of all the veins I return now to the Umbilical vessels which are not divided after the same maner in all Animals for there are found in some 2. or more litle Branches in the body of the foetus whereof some pass into the Liver others into the Vena Portae or Meseraical veins But in a human foetus the Trunks of the veins arteries being involved together are complicated some 3. or 4. Fingers breadth from the Navel as if one should twist so many wax candles together like a cord being skinned over and conglutinated by the help of a thick gellyish memmembrane This litle cord passing on to the Chorion is in the flat part of the After-birth and interior superficies of the Chorion distributed into several Propagations and thence is ramified into many other almost infinite litle Branches by which the Aliment attracted as it were by so many roots is derived to the foetus The Veines relating to this litle Cord are distinguished in sundry places by litle knobbs or warts as it were by litle bladders full of blood that so the blood might not rush in too forcibly upon the foetus By the number of these protuberations the superstitious Midwives do spend their divination concerning the number of children yet to come and in case they finde none of these knobs they pronounce the Woman barren for the future and likewise by the distance betweene these protuberations they fondly prophesie of the space between childe and childe and also of the discrimination of the Sex from the variety of their complexion Also the constitution of the Umbilical vessels is like to this in almost all other foetuses which have but one onely Uterine cake namely in Bitches Mice and others but the litle cord is in them shorter and less complicated But in Cows Ews Hindes Does Sowes and other Animals whose foetus is not sustained by aliment derived from one carnous substance or cake but from diverse the distribution of the Umbilical vessels is also diverse For the litle branches or terminations of the vessels are not disseminated through the cake onely but also and that
to be rendered prolifical by no sensible corporeal Agent as the Iron touched by the Loadstone is presently indowed with the virtue of the Loadstone and doth draw other iron-bodies unto it Namely having once received that virtue which we have spoken of it doth exercise the plastick generative power and procreateth its own like no otherwise then plants doe which we see are impowered with the force of both Sexes But I cannot but wonder where that faculty when the act of coition is finished before the production of the Egge or Conception doth reside and to what that active vertue of the Male is imparted namely whether to the Uterus alone or to the whole Female or rather primarily to the Uterus but secondarily to the Female or lastly whether as we see with our eyes and think with our braines so a female doth conceive with her Vterus For though the female sometimes conceiving after coition doth not produce a Foetus yet we know that those Symptomes did ensue which gave a cleare testimony of a conception set on foot though it came to nothing Your litle Bitches which are kept too plentifully and thereupon admit coition without success are notwithstanding observed to be sluggish about the just time whereat they ought to puppy and bark as if they were in distress and likewise filtch away the young whelps from another Bitch and lick them over and cherish them as tenderly as if they were their own natural productions and fight eagerly to keep them from the true Parent Nay some of them have milk or beestings as they call it in their teats and are obnoxious to the distempers incident to those that have really puppied just as Hennes will cluck in their season though they have no eggs at all to sit upon Some kinde of birds as namely Pigeons if they admit coition at the wonted time though they lay no eggs at all or subventaneous ones onely yet are possessed with their usual sedulity providence of building nests For the vertue proceeding from the Male doth so largely fructifie the whole Female that it produceth a thorough change and alteration as well in the frame of their minds as in the constitution of their bodies And though this doe principally happen to the Vterus fitted for the impression and from thence the power and efficacy thereof be derived to the whole body as from the turgent testicles of the Male there is an accession of strength superadded to the whole body yet the same scruple remaines namely how this power communicated to the Vterus it selfe doth inhere in it as whether in the whole Vterus or in any one part of it onely For there is nothing to be found abiding therein after coition for the geniture of the Male doth either suddenly fall out againe or vanish away and the blood doth circulate againe from the uterus by the vessels Besides what preparation or maturity of the Vterus is it that doth require the genitall seed or from whence doth it proceed for unless the uterus be prepared for coition all other attempts are frustrate nay several animals doe not admit coition it self without they be thus prepared That maturity I confess doth sooner befall them by reason of their converse with the Male and the incitements which he useth to provoke them yet it is procured as that ripeness of fruits in plants by natures owne inclination and tendency But what this Alteration is I shall now deliver according as I have found it by experience First of all the uterus appears thicker and more fleshy and afterwards forasmuch as concerneth the interiour superficies which is the place where the future conception is to be received it groweth more tender answering in lubricity and softness to the internal ventricles of the Braine as we have even now affirmed concerning Hindes and other creatures which cleave the hoofe But in Bitches Cats and other multiparous Animals whose feet are distinguished into toes the hornes of the Wombe doe exactly resemble the litle smooth trumpets of a womans womb or the appendixes of the guts of Birds or the Ureters in Men and in some places have litle knobs which doe swell inward and become exceeding soft through which after coition as we have observed in Hinds and Does as if they did open themselves the first albugineous humours doe transpire into the capacity of the Uterus out of which humours the Conception or Egge is formed And this is the manner how the Uterus is by the Coition of the Male like Fruit by the Summer heat impregnated and heightned into the highest pitch of maturity But because there are no manifest signs of Conception visible before the Uterus doth begin to open and the albugineous liquor or slender threads like the Spiders web and the first rudiments of the future Egge or Conception appear and seeing the substance of the Uterus now ready for Conception doth so neerly resemble the Constitution of the Braine why may we not imagine that both their functions are also alike and that something like if not the selfe same thing that the phantasme or appetite is to the brain is excited in the Uterus from which the generation or procreation of the Egge doth succeed for both their functions are equally called conceptions and both are Immaterial though they be the principles of all the actions of the body namely this of the Natural that of the Animal actions this the first cause and principle of all actions relating to the generation of Animals that of all actions tending to their preservation And as Appetite doth spring from the conception of the braine and that conception from the outward appetible or desirable objects So also from the Male as being the more perfect Animal as from the most natural appetible object the natural conception dotharise in the Uterus as the Animal conception in the Brain And from this Appetite or Conception it cometh to pass that the female doth produce an off-spring like the male Genitor For as we from the Conception of the Form or Idea in the Braine do fashion a form like to it in our works so doth the Idea or Species of the Genitor residing in the Uterus by the help of the formative facultie beget a Foetus like the Genitor himself namely by implanting that Immaterial species which it hath upon its Workmanship In like manner as Art which is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Species of the future work doth produce a Like in its operation and generate it in the matter As the Builder erects a House according to his pre-received conception And the same thing happeneth in other productions and artificial generations So that what discipline doth effect in the Braine namely Art that in proportion doth the Coition of the Male effect in the Uterus namely the plastical Art whereby several foetuses are procreated either like or unlike by the same Coition For if the Generations and first artificial conceptions which are
in that part is made a Mother by conceiving and fostering a foetus in it where it is streightned as if it passed through an Isthmus and being again dilated as it arriveth at the other Horn it proceedeth still on to the farthest extremity thereof likewise where growing less and pointed as it did at the beginning it erects its non Vltra and proceeds no farther Therefore these kind of conceptions if they be drawn away entire do resemble a wallet whose both ends are full of Water and thence also that coat chorion is likewise called Allantoides because the conceptions of such Animals resemble a Gut blown up or stuffed pudding which is tied fast in the midst If you dissect an Embryo at this time you shall discern all the interiour parts distinct and compleat but chiefly the Stomack the Heart and Kidnies and the Lungs which are also divided into their Lobes and look as they had blood in them having gained their just form But the complexion of these Lungs is more ruddy then of those which have at any time breathed because the Lungs stretched and dilated by the Air put on a whiter colour And by this observation of the different complexion you may discover whether a Mother brought her Childe alive or dead into the world for instantly after inspiration the Lungs change colour which colour remains though the foetus dye immediatly after In a Female foetus the Testicles improperly so called are seated neer the Kidnies in the hanging or loose ligament of the uterus or womb at the ends or extremities of the Horns on both sides and are for their proportion larger in a foetus then in a grown body and look white like the caruncles In the Stomack of the Foetus there is found a watery substance not unlike that wherein he swims but something more troubled and less transparent like to that milk which is dreined out of Womens breasts that are about four or five moneths gone or like white Posset as we call it In the upper Guts there is store of chyle made of the fore-said substance now concocted But in the Colon or colick Gut there do begin to appear yellow excrements and shaped But as for the Urachus or Perforation of the Navel of the foetus by which it is imagined to discharge the urine into the coat called Allantoides I finde no such matter nor any difference at all between the coat Allantoides which is supposed to contain the urine and the Chorion nor do I discover any urine in the After-birth but onely in the Bladder and in that good store the Bladder it self being something Oblong is scituate between the Umbilical Arteries which arise from the branches of the descending Trunk of the Great Arterie The Liver is rude and almost inform or unshapen as if it were something besides Natures intention it looks onely like a ruddy affusion of Blood The Brain being now somewhat reduced into shape is comprehended in a thick membrane The Eyes lie concealed under the lids and those lids are so starched together and shut so fast as it is with puppies newly whelped that I had much ado to disjoin them and open the eyes The Breast-bone and Ribs do now harden by degrees and the complexion of the Muscles shifts from white to be blood coloured Having made very many several dissections for the whole course of this Moneth I am become more assured that the caruncles before mentioned do exercise the office of an After-birth or Uterine cake which I now discerned to be red and swelled and about the bigness of a Wall-nut The Conception which as we said did before stick only to the caruncles by the help of the glutinous substance doth now dispatch the litle branches of the Umbilical Vessels into the very body of the caruncles as Plants work in their Roots into the earth by which it is fastened and grows to the Womb. About the end of December I have feen the foetus being then about a span long lustily bestirring himself and kicking opening his mouth and jawes and also shutting them again His hearâ— was now placed in its purse or pericardium and the Breast being dissected it was very discernable making apparent and forcible Palpitations and yet the Ventricles of the Heart were Vniforme and of equal magnitude and did consist of equal height or of a double cone the thickness also of their sides was equal Where also I clearly discerned the deaf ears of the Heart which at this time were full of blood like two pretty large bladders to continue and persist in their motion for a little space even when the Heart it self had resigned it up All the Bowels which were indeed perfect before are now larger and more conspicuous The Scull is partly cartilagineous and partly bony The Hoofs are yellowish flexile and soft just as the Hoofs of grown Deere are being mollified in seething water the Caruncles now very great as large Mushroomes are spred over the whole cavity of the Uterus and do evidently supply the use of an After-birth for several propagations and those large ones too are from the Umbilical Vessels disseminated into them that so they may derive aliment to the foetus in like manner as in those that are already in the world the chyle is transported by the Meseraick branches into the Gate vain of the Liver In whatsoever Conception of this kind there is but one onely foetus there the Umbilical vessels are conveied to all the caruncles as well of the opposite as the same side but in that conception where there is a double foetus there the ramifications of the Vmbilical vessels relating to each foetus are not propagated beyond the caruncles of the same side wherein it resideth The lesser Vmbilical veins as they respect the foetus do where they unite and join together determine and end in other greater Veins and those again passing farther on and uniting do conclude in Veins yet greater then themselves till at the last they constitute two truncks which being conjoined do convey Blood into the Hollow and Gate Vein But the Vmbilical Arteries arising from the branches of the descending Trunk of the great Artery are two and those very small ones and such as were it not for their pulse could scarce be discerned which being carried along to the capacity or superficies of the conception where the caruncles or After-birth meet the propagations of the Veins do first diminish or lessen into capillary threads and at last become quite invisible and are clean expunged As in the Vterus the Extremities of the Vmbilical vessels are terminated into the caruncles so likewise out of the Vterus the Vterine vessels which are many and large carrying blood from the Mother to the Womb by the conduct of the suspensory ligaments do terminate outwardly in those very caruncles We are also to take notice that the Interiour vessels are all of them Veins for the most part but the Exteriour are for the most the propagations